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Mi\>mit}t  CDucattonal  iHonograpl^ji 

EDITED  BY  HENRY  SUZZALLO 

PRESIDENT   OF   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   WASHINGTON,   SEATTLE 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  A 

DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL 

SYSTEM 

BY 
CHARLES  HUBBARD  JUDD 

PROFESSOR  OF  EDUCATION  AND  DIRECTOR  OF  THE  SCHOOL  OF 
EDUCATION  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

BOSTON,    NEW   YORK   AND    CHICAGO 


COPYRIGHT,  I918,  BY  CHARLBS  HUBBARD  JUDD 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVXD 


CAMBKIDGB  .  MASSACHUSBTTS 
U   .   8  .    A 


I 
> 


LA 


EduoatioE 
Library 


^  EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

It  is  probable  that  at  the  close  of  the  great  emer- 
gency in  which  we  now  find  ourselves  this  nation 
will  undergo  a  notable  reappraisal  and  a  consid- 
erable reconstruction.  A  nation  seldom  makes 
large  sacrifices  for  the  maintenance  of  its  ideals 
without  becoming  sensitive  to  practices  which 
fall  far  short  of  them.  Already  we  are  deeply  con- 
cerned to  know  just  what  qualities  of  personal 
character  and  precisely  what  kinds  of  human  re- 
lationships are  fundamental  to  the  realization  of 
a  truly  democratic  Ufe.  We  are  asking  whether 
or  not  we  possess  these  in  adequate  degree,  and 
how  we  are  to  overcome  our  discrepancies. 

The  American  cannot  long  ask  himself  these 
questions  without  ultimately  looking  to  the  pub- 
lic school  system  for  ways  and  means  of  rebuild- 
ing our  national  character  and  life.  From  the 
time  of  Thomas  Jefferson  it  has  been  the  habit  of 
our  national  leaders  to  reassert  the  acute  depend- 
ence of  free  government  and  free  society  upon 
iii 


501616 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

the  organized  system  of  popular  education.  Gen- 
erally speaking,  the  people  as  a  whole  have 
accepted  the  doctrine  that  our  schools  are  the 
most  effective  instruments  we  have  for  the  con- 
scious direction  of  our  national  life.  It  remains 
for  the  teachers  to  put  this  faith  into  practice 
more  responsively  and  more  scientifically  than 
ever  before. 

The  professional  problem  is  one  of  more  direct 
and  effective  social  adjustment  of  school  organi- 
zation and  teaching  process  to  the  ideals  and  con- 
ditions of  our  aspiring  but  somewhat  chaotic 
American  Ufe.  The  philosophy  of  democracy 
needs  an  enlarged  and  more  thoughtful  use 
among  school  teachers.  The  traditional  and  the 
imitative  tendencies  of  the  teaching  personnel 
must  be  supplemented  by  a  newly  acquired  de- 
votion to  the  checking  of  results.  Long  has 
an  easy  faith  in  our  deductions  of  expected  ef- 
ficiency concealed  our  incompetencies  in  the 
achievement  of  both  immediate  pedagogical  re- 
sults and  final  social  products.  Some  progress 
we  have  made,  but  it  is  quite  inadequate  to  meet 
just  criticisms  which  at  the  end  of  this  war  will 
iv 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

fall  heavily  upon  the  American  school  system. 
The  educators  must  at  once  begin  to  prepare 
their  minds  for  that  new  effective  democratic 
service  which  the  public  will  soon  insistently  re- 
quire of  them. 

The  first  step  is  to  know  whither  our  present 
school  system  is  taking  us.  What  we  have  is  the 
product  of  much  indiscriminate  borrowing  from 
alien  nations  coupled  with  partial  modifications 
forced  on  us  by  imperious  influences  native  to  our 
own  life.  But  even  these  characteristically  Ameri- 
can influences  have  entered  our  school  system  in 
an  isolated  rather  than  a  coordinated  way.  They 
operate  in  the  presence  of  strange  inconsistencies. 
Many  factors  in  our  national  life  which  have  a 
wide  but  subtle  importance  in  our  social  scheme 
have  failed  to  register  upon  our  educational  or- 
ganization because  public  clamor  has  never  im- 
posed them  upon  professional  attention. 

The  second  step  is  to  encourage  an  educational 
initiative  and  experimentation  which  will  give 
to  our  American  school  teaching  a  more  direct 
adaptiveness  to  our  national  social  life.  Amongst 
us,  educational  reform  has  operated  with  an  air 

V 


EDITOR'S  INTRODUCTION 

of  cock-sureness.  If  a  new  device  could  not 
promise  perfection,  it  has  not  had  strong  propo- 
nents. This  has  been  fatal  to  that  openness  of 
mind  which  gives  experiment  the  large  initial 
breadth  which  increases  its  chance  of  success. 
Vanity,  both  personal  and  professional,  has  at- 
tached to  the  origination  of  new  plans  of  proced- 
ure and  prevented  the  correction  of  errors  in  first 
thought.  Moreover,  we  have  been  wasteful  in 
our  neglect  of  educational  experience  elsewhere 
than  on  our  own  trying  ground.  Our  need  is  for 
more  frank  experimentation  in  education,  one 
that  is  sensitive  to  the  judgmqits  of  a  compara- 
tive study  of  experience  the  world  over. 

The  way  to  such  a  point  of  view  and  method 
is  admirably  suggested  by  the  brilliant  study  of 
American  education  here  presented.  Its  whole 
analysis  is  scientific  in  spirit  and  timely  in  method 
of  statement.  It  ushers  in  the  beginning  of  that 
new  educational  literature  which  the  present 
large  thoughtfulness  of  the  profession  must  pro- 
vide if  American  schools  are  to  meet  the  huge 
American  problems  already  staring  us  in  the 
face. 


PREFACE 

The  changes  which  have  been  going  on  in  recent 
years  in  the  organization  of  American  schools 
are  not  mere  superficial  readjustments  dictated 
by  the  whims  of  commimities  or  individual  lead- 
ers. There  are,  to  be  sure,  minor  reforms  and 
counter-reforms  which  are  purely  local  or  tran- 
sient in  character.  But  back  of  these  there  are 
fundamental  tendencies  toward  change  which 
aim  at  the  adaptation  of  schools  to  community 
needs.  The  feeling  has  been  steadily  gaining 
strength  that  our  generation  must  shake  off  the 
institutional  traditions  of  a  past  age  and  organ- 
ize a  sound  scheme  of  democratic  education.  The 
present  study  is  an  effort  to  bring  out  explicitly 
some  of  the  justifications  for  the  reorganizations 
which  are  now  under  way.  The  book  aims  to 
bring  to  clearer  consciousness  the  unique  charac- 
teristics of  our  continuous  educational  system. 
It  aims  to  point  the  way  by  which  much  of  the 
present  waste  of  pupils'  time  and  energy  can  be 
vii 


PREFACE 

corrected.  It  is  a  plea  for  a  tolerant  attitude 
toward  the  crudities  of  the  junior  high  school. 
It  is  a  plea  for  more  cooperation  in  developing 
this  institution. 

The  book  limits  itself  to  a  discussion  of  the 
common  school  and  to  the  facts  regarding  the 
high  school  which  are  directly  related  to  the 
common  school.  The  problem  of  high-school 
reorganization  and  the  problem  of  a  better  ar- 
ticulation of  high  school  and  college  are  touched 
on,  but  not  discussed  in  full.  The  reader  will, 
however,  be  able  without  serious  recasting  of 
phrases  to  carry  over  all  that,  is  here  set  forth 
into  the  fields  which  lie  outside  the  sphere  of  the 
present  volume. 

C.  H.  J. 

Chicago,  Illinois 


CONTENTS 

Editor's  Introduction iii 

Preface vii 

I.  Introduction i 

II.  Undemocratic  Schools 6 

in.  The  Beginnings  of  the  American  System  .  19 

IV.  Unfortunate  Borrowing 38 

V.  The  Struggle  for  an  Undivided  Educa- 
tional System 56 

VI.  Pressure  within  the  High  School       .      .71 

Vn.  What  is  a  Junior  High  School      ...  83 

Vni.  Individual  Differences  and  Economy       .  95 

IX.  Practical  Methods  of  Promoting  Reform  108 

OXTTUMX 115 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  A 
DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

I 

INTRODUCTION 

The  common  school  is  sometimes  described  as  a 
product  of  the  Reformation.  Before  that  period 
there  was  no  thought  of  special  training  for 
ordinary  boys  and  girls.  The  humble  tasks  of 
their  daily  lives  called  for  no  knowledge  of  the 
arts  of  reading  and  writing,  and  such  skill  as  they 
required  for  practical  occupations  was  acquired 
by  imitation.  There  was  no  demand,  even  in 
the  upper  levels  of  society,  for  the  education  of 
girls.  The  duties  of  girls  were  domestic,  and  pro- 
priety forbade  their  training  outside  the  home. 
It  was  only  the  sons  of  the  aristocracy  who  were 
thought  of  as  needing  schooling.  For  them  there 
were  developed,  from  the  twelfth  century  on, 
schools  of  law  and  theology  and  places  of  train- 
ing in  the  arts  of  war  and  the  hunt.  Education 
I 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

began  as  an  exclusive  right  of  the  sons  of  the 
aristocracy. 

By  the  time  the  Puritans  came  to  New  England 
matters  had  progressed.  The  common  man  had 
reached  a  level  where  he  had  a  right  to  schooling. 
But  the  traditions  of  aristocracy  were  still  strong 
even  in  New  England.  The  clergyman  and  others 
of  the  professional  class  were  men  apart,  and  the 
schools  which  prepared  them  for  their  life-work 
were  exclusive  institutions.  Even  as  late  as 
Revolutionary  times  a  democratic  system  of  edu- 
cation had  not  been  worked  out. 

Then  came  the  period  of  rapid  growth  of  re- 
publican ideas  when  the  Nation  framed  its  Con- 
stitution and  set  up  its  machinery  of  popular 
government.  Still  there  lingered  in  the  schools 
traditions  of  aristocratic  exclusiveness  in  the 
form  of  separate  schools  for  the  professional 
classes;  and  for  a  long  time  these  traditions  could 
not  be  set  aside  in  the  interests  of  democratic 
schools. 

The  prospects  of  advance  toward  a  strictly 
democratic  educational  system  were  bright  as  a 
result  of  the  growth,  in  the  early  years  of  the 

2 


INTRODUCTION 

nineteenth  century,  of  the  American  academy 
and  of  the  district  school.  But  in  the  midst  of 
this  advance,  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century 
our  leaders  carried  us  back  toward  medievalism 
by  borrowing  from  the  least  democratic  nation  in 
Europe  one  of  its  fundamental  institutions.  They 
brought  to  America  the  Prussian  common  school. 
The  eight-year  elementary  school  of  the  United 
States  is  a  transplanted  institution.  It  does  not 
belong  to  us,  and  it  is  not  in  harmony  with  our 
evolution.  It  has  acted  as  an  obstacle  to  the 
growth  of  a  unified  school  system. 

For  more  than  half  a  century  we  have  tried  to 
expand  it  and  thus  to  make  it  democratic.  But 
during  all  this  time  we  have  not  succeeded  in 
radically  altering  its  form.  Of  late  we  have  be- 
gun to  understand  that  what  is  needed  is  thor- 
oughgoing reform,  not  compromise.  During  the 
last  decade  many  cities  have  adopted  a  form  of 
organization  known  as  the  six-and-six  plan.  This 
abandons  the  eight-year  elementary  school  with 
its  Prussian  course  of  study  for  an  organization 
which  is  at  once  more  economical  and  broader 
in  the  outlook  which  it  offers  to  its  pupils.  The 

3 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

experiment  has  been  somewhat  chaotic  and 
many  observers  have  been  pessimistic.  Some  are 
in  doubt  about  the  wisdom  of  the  experiment 
even  to-day.  But  progress  is  under  way  and  this 
progress  is  toward  a  school  system  which  will 
eliminate  the  Prussian  eight-year  conunon  school. 

In  the  midst  of  the  hesitating  experimentation 
of  recent  years  have  come  the  present  awakening 
of  a  national  consciousness  and  a  new  devotion  to 
democracy  stimulated  by  the  revelations  of  the 
goal  toward  which  Prussian  education  leads.  The 
contribution  which  the  schoolman  can  make  to 
the  new  era  is  clear.  He  must  bring  about  speed- 
ily those  changes  which  have  been  waiting  for 
slow  evolution.  He  must  study  the  new  conditions 
of  life,  and  create  an  educational  system  which 
shall  be  no  imitation  of  an  old  aristocratic  model, 
but  a  true  expression  of  the  spirit  of  a  free  democ- 
racy. 

To  this  end  it  is  fitting  that  the  distinction  be- 
tween an  aristocratic  school  system  and  a  demo- 
cratic school  system  be  carefully  drawn.  It  is 
fitting  that  the  history  of  American  schools  be 
sketched  so  as  to  show  where  these  schools  have 
4 


INTRODUCTION 

made  achievements  and  where  they  have  failed. 
With  this  contrast  and  with  these  facts  in  mind 
it  will  be  legitimate  to  suggest  the  steps  which 
must  be  taken  to  complete  the  reforms  which 
have  been  moving  but  slowly  in  the  past. 


II 

UNDEMOCRATIC  SCHOOLS 

Americans  have  long  been  accustomed  to  hear- 
ing the  public  school  lauded  as  the  foundation  of 
democracy.  It  is  not  unnatural  that  they  should 
fall  into  the  mistaken  belief  that  any  scheme  of 
universal  education  is  of  necessity  democratic. 
The  example  of  Germany  completely  refutes  this 
belief.  The  educational  system  of  that  country 
is  and  has  been  for  generations  a  wall  of  defense 
to  aristocracy  and  a  device  for  disciplining  the 
common  people  into  willing  subservience  to  this 
aristocracy.  An  examination  of  some  of  the  lead- 
ing characteristics  of  the  German  schools  will 
serve  two  purposes.  It  will  furnish  a  contrasting 
background  for  a  later  discussion  of  the  demo- 
cratic tendencies  in  our  own  system  and  will  at 
the  same  time  show  how  gross  a  blimder  was 
made  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century  when  one 
branch  of  the  German  system  was  imported  into 
the  United  States. 

6 


UNDEMOCRATIC  SCHOOLS 

The  German  school  system  is  made  up  of  two 
separate  compartments.  One  is  for  the  common 
people  and  is  called  the  Volksschule.  The  other 
is  for  the  aristocracy.  The  latter  is  subdivided 
into  several  institutions  which  differ  slightly  from 
each  other,  but  for  our  purposes  may  very  prop- 
erly be  typified  by  the  Gymnasium  which  is  the  old- 
est and  still  dominant  form  of  aristocratic  school. 

There  are  minor  deviations  from  the  types  of 
organization  which  we  shall  discuss.  The  smaller 
German  States  have  Volksschulen  and  Gymna- 
sien,  which  in  their  primary  departments  are  not 
as  completely  separated  as  are  the  schools  of  the 
great  States  where  there  is  absolute  separation 
from  the  first  year  to  the  last.  In  some  German 
States  there  are  certain  so-called  middle  schools 
which  stand  between  the  two  extreme  types.  In 
all  the  States  schools  for  girls  have  grown  up  in 
recent  years  which  are  somewhat  divergent  from 
the  historic  patterns  planned  originally  for  boys. 
But  when  all  these  minor  and  local  differences 
are  taken  into  account,  the  one  clear  outstanding 
fact  is  that  the  German  schools  fall  into  two 
sharply  distinguished  systems. 

7 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

The  Volksschule  and  the  Gymnasium  are  alto- 
gether dififerent  in  their  methods  of  training 
teachers.  The  teachers  of  the  Volksschule  are 
graduates  of  that  school  who  have  afterwards 
been  trained  in  an  institution  known  as  a  Lehrer- 
seminar.  This  institution  has  no  connection 
with  the  university.  Before  the  war,  teachers  of 
the  Volksschule  were  allowed  to  take  courses  in 
the  university  only  in  the  one  State  of  Saxony, 
and  the  university  privileges  there  reluctantly 
granted  were  so  hedged  about  that  the  conces- 
sion was  practically  without  value.  Even  in 
Saxony  the  teacher  in  training;  for  the  common 
school  had  absolutely  no  access  to  the  univer- 
sity. In  no  other  State  were  even  experienced 
common-school  teachers  allowed  to  study  in  the 
higher  institutions  of  learning. 

The  teachers  of  the  Gymnasium,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  entirely  different  training.  No  Volks- 
schule graduate  ever  becomes  a  teacher  in  the 
Gymnasium.  No  Gymnasium  teacher  has  ever 
been  in  a  Lehrer seminar.  The  teachers  in  the 
Gymnasium  are  products  of  the  higher  schools. 
They  are  first  of  all  graduates  of  the  Gymnasium 
8 


UNDEMOCRATIC  SCHOOLS 

itself.  They  then  take  courses  in  the  university. 
After  completing  courses  in  the  university  the 
prospective  teacher  of  the  Gymnasium  takes  an 
examination  set  by  the  State,  and  if  successful 
goes  to  a  Gymnasium  for  a  period  of  apprentice 
training.  Here  he  is  drilled  for  two  years  in  the 
ways  of  the  teaching  staff  and,  under  the  clos- 
est supervision  of  the  principal  and  teachers,  ab- 
sorbs the  ways  of  thinking  and  acting  which  will 
fit  him  to  perpetuate  the  traditions  of  a  school 
devoted  to  the  educating  of  a  highly  selected 
aristocratic  class. 

The  sharp  distinction  between  the  methods 
of  training  teachers  in  the  two  schools  of  the 
German  system  is  of  importance  to  us  in  this 
country,  because  in  1838  Massachusetts,  through 
the  enactment  of  the  Normal  School  Law,  es- 
tablished the  first  American  training  school  for 
teachers  of  the  common  schools  on  the  model 
of  the  Prussian  Lehrerseminar.  The  American 
normal  school  was  in  no  way  related  to  the  col- 
lege; nor  was  it  a  part  of  the  original  purpose  of 
this  school  to  train  teachers  for  the  high  school. 
The  normal  schools  were  institutions  apart,  sep- 

9 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

arate  from  all  other  schools  except  the  common 
elementary  schools.  Trouble  has  again  and 
again  arisen  from  this  fact.  Our  normal  schools 
have  always  been  difficult  to  coordinate  with 
other  educational  institutions.  We  have  to-day 
in  many  States  acute  controversies  between 
state  universities  and  normal  schools  because 
in  a  unified  American  system  it  is  diflicult  to 
maintain  the  German  separation.  We  shall  some 
day  have  to  face  this  problem  and  solve  it.  It 
is  one  of  the  misfortunes  which  came  to  us  when 
we  were  young  and  unorganized  and  over-im- 
pressed with  the  apparent  eflSciency  of  a  system 
that  was  well  organized. 

Coming  back  from  the  digression,  we  note 
that  the  German  schools  are  entirely  separate, 
not  only  in  their  teachers,  but  also  in  the  classes 
of  pupils  for  which  they  are  designed.  It  is  not 
true  there  as  here  that  all  classes  of  pupils  attend 
one  elementary  school  in  the  early  years  and 
gradually  fall  apart  later.  From  the  first  there 
is  separation.  At  six  years  of  age  the  boy  or  girl 
of  the  common  family  goes  to  the  Volksschule. 
The  child  knows  from  the  day  he  enters  that 

lO 


UNDEMOCRATIC  SCHOOLS 

school  that  his  place  in  the  economy  of  national 
life  is  fixed  at  a  low  level.  He  is  to  belong  to  the 
humbler  class.  His  tasks  are  those  of  bearing  the 
heavy  burdens.  He  can  never  be  one  of  society's 
leaders.  The  six-year-old  boy  of  the  aristocratic 
family  goes  to  another  institution.  He,  too, 
notes  the  social  distinction  and  is  proud  of  the 
future  which  lies  before  the  members  of  his  class. 
If  he  can  maintain  his  place  in  this  school,  all 
the  opportunities  of  rank  are  open  to  him. 

Let  us  follow  these  two  classes  of  pupils  as 
they  move  through  the  schools.  The  child  in 
the  Volksschule  receives  eight  years  of  educa- 
tion. This  is  given  him  out  of  the  public  purse. 
When  the  eight  years  are  over  he  is  confirmed 
in  the  Church  and  his  education  is  in  most  cases 
completed.  A  few  go  on  to  the  Lehrer seminar. 
The  rest  attend  industrial  schools  which  fit  for 
the  trades,  but  no  boy  or  girl  of  this  school  can 
ever  receive  a  higher  education.  There  is  no 
high  school,  no  imiversity,  no  intellectual  open- 
ing for  the  graduates  of  the  Volksschule.  They 
are  the  hewers  of  wood  and  the  drawers  of  water. 
The  products  of  the  Volksschule  go  into  the  in- 
II 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

dustries.  They  may  not  be  officers  in  the  army. 
They  are  not  admitted  to  the  civil-service  posi- 
tions which  require  intelligence.  They  are  held 
by  the  firm  hand  of  the  State  in  the  social  caste 
to  which  they  belong.  They  are  drafted  into 
army  service  for  two  years,  or  in  some  divisions 
for  three,  as  common  soldiers;  and  they  are 
taken  to  some  part  of  the  Empire  remote  from 
home  in  order  that  they  may  not  be  distracted 
during  the  period  of  their  introduction  to  the 
art  of  soldiering. 

The  student  of  the  Gymnasium  is  of  a  very 
different  rank  and  has  a  very  different  experi- 
ence. In  the  school  which  he  attends  all  the 
pupils  pay  tuition.  They  have  before  them 
twelve  years  of  schooling,  three  in  the  primary 
department  and  nine  in  the  Gymnasium  proper. 
After  graduation  from  the  Gymnasium  there 
open  up  the  university  and  the  higher  technical 
schools.  Beyond  these  are  the  professions  and 
all  the  higher  Government  positions.  Those 
who  complete  successfully  the  third  year  from 
the  last  in  the  Gymnasium  serve  only  one  year 
in  the  army  and  are  allowed  to  choose  the  place 

12 


UNDEMOCRATIC  SCHOOLS 

where  they  will  serve.  It  is  from  this  class,  too, 
that  the  officers  of  the  army  are  drawn. 

So  intense  is  the  social  pressure  on  a  boy  to 
maintain  himself  in  this  school  that  many  of 
the  difficulties  which  are  common  in  keeping  up 
standards  among  American  high-school  pupils 
are  unknown.  The  word  of  a  teacher  in  a  Gym- 
nasium is  heeded  as  if  it  were  the  dictimi  of 
society,  because  it  is  true  in  a  very  literal  sense 
that  the  boy  and  the  teacher  are  dealing  with 
the  social  career  of  the  boy  and  with  no  trivial 
problem  of  mere  education. 

A  most  important  phase  of  the  separation 
between  the  Volkssckule  and  the  Gymnasium 
appears  when  we  come  to  consider  the  subject- 
matter  of  instruction.  The  Gymnasium  teaches 
Latin  and  French  and  English.  It  teaches  alge- 
bra and  geometry  and  science.  Nor  are  these 
subjects  postponed  to  the  later  years.  At  the 
end  of  the  fourth  year  of  schooling  the  boy  be- 
gins his  Latin  and  by  the  time  he  is  through  the 
twelfth  year  he  can  read  Latin  imderstandingly. 
The  higher  branches  of  mathematics  are  stud- 
ied from  the  sixth  school  year  on. 

13 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

The  pupil  in  the  Volksschule  has  a  very  dif- 
ferent program.  He  is  to  be  all  his  life  one  of 
the  common  people.  He  does  not  need  foreign 
languages,  and  he  gets  none.  He  will  need  no 
higher  mathematics  in  his  lowly  sphere,  so  he 
is  taught  only  the  rudiments  of  mathematics 
which  deal  with  number  work  and  simple  meas- 
urement. In  short,  the  Volksschule  is  a  vernacu- 
lar, rudimentary  school  limited  to  eight  years. 

There  are  two  subjects  which  are  taught  ia 
both  schools,  namely,  history  and  religion.  The 
history  is  chiefly  German  history.  In  the  com- 
mon school  it  is  emphatically  German  history.  In 
the  Gymnasium  it  is  German  history  with  some 
Greek  and  Roman  history  and  a  little  modem 
history  of  other  nations. 

Religion  is  taught  throughout  all  schools.  It 
is  used  as  an  effective  means  of  teaching  duty 
to  the  State  and  recognition  of  authority.  Some 
of  the  references  to  the  Deity  which  are  made 
by  the  Kaiser  and  which  fall  on  American  ears 
with  a  strange  and  unintelligible  sound  can  be 
understood  when  we  remember  that  these  refer- 
ences call  up  the  associations  drilled  into  the 
14 


UNDEMOCRATIC  SCHOOLS 

minds  of  German  boys  and  girls  by  constant 
instruction  in  German  religion.  Religion  is  an 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  ruling  class  to 
keep  the  people  obedient.  We  in  this  country 
may  scoff  at  the  divine  right  of  kings,  but  it  is 
p>ersistently  kept  before  the  children  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire,  and  they  can  no  more  shake  them- 
selves free  from  the  doctrine  than  we  can  escape 
the  conviction  that  a  verb  and  its  subject  should 
agree  in  number. 

History  and  reHgion  are  taught  in  all  schools, 
but  the  views  which  the  pupils  get  in  the  two 
schools  are  as  different  as  the  views  of  a  landscape 
seen  now  through  the  small  end  of  a  telescope, 
now  through  the  large  end.  To  the  pupil  of  the 
Volksschule  the  voices  of  religion  and  history  call 
to  service  and  obedience.  To  the  boy  in  the 
Gymnasium  the  call  is  to  dominion  and  arrogant 
command. 

When  one  studies  the  German  school  system 
with  a  mind  full  of  American  traditions,  one 
finds  himself  wondering  how  it  comes  about  that 
people  submit  to  this  kind  of  separation.  The 
answer  to  this  wonder  is  to  be  found  in  his- 

15 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

tory.  The  German  school  system  is  a  direct 
descendant  of  the  first  educational  system  of 
Europe. 

When  the  first  schools  grew  up  in  Europe  they 
were  professional  schools  for  the  better  classes. 
The  common  man  did  not  read  or  write.  A  few 
of  the  nobility  and  the  princes  did.  The  clergy 
had  a  monopoly  on  the  intellectual  life  of  the 
nations  except  in  so  far  as  the  rulers  shared  the 
things  of  the  mind  in  moments  of  leisure  when 
they  were  not  waging  war.  So  it  came  about  that 
there  were  riding-schools  for  knights  and  schools 
of  law  for  the  nobility  and  scjiools  of  theology 
for  the  clergy,  but  the  day  of  common  schools 
was  not  yet.  These  early  schools  for  the  upper 
classes  had  in  them  no  tolerance  for  democracy. 
The  more  the  aristocracy  could  divide  itself  from 
the  common  people  by  training  and  by  cultiva- 
tion of  the  intellectual  arts,  the  more  it  made 
itself  secure  in  its  rule.  The  modem  German 
Gymnasium  has  exactly  the  same  spirit  as  had  the 
aristocratic  schools  of  the  medieval  period.  The 
Gymnasium  is  a  device  for  buttressing  a  power- 
ful aristocracy  in  its  exclusive  control  of  power 
i6 


UNDEMOCRATIC  SCHOOLS 

through  superior  mastery  of  knowledge.  The 
common  herd  has  been  deliberately  held  at  a 
lower  intellectual  level  in  order  that  its  mem- 
bers may  accept  without  uprising  a  lower  social 
standing  and  a  more  arduous  service  to  the  State. 

When  common  schools  began  they  were  mis- 
sion schools  organized  in  the  cathedrals  to  train 
choir  boys  and  teach  the  people  the  catechism. 
Some  charitable  priest  or  monk  would  at  times 
go  beyond  his  formal  duty  and  give  the  boys,  as 
a  reward  for  their  contributions  to  the  church 
service,  an  insight  into  the  rudiments  of  arith- 
metic or  some  training  in  recognizing  letters. 
The  chief  business  of  this  mission  school  was, 
however,  not  to  raise  the  boy  up,  but  rather  to 
drill  him  in  service  and  obedience.  So  it  is  with 
the  Volkssckide  of  to-day.  It  is  a  school  adapted 
to  those  who  are  to  serve  and  are  to  be  trained  to 
be  content  with  their  lot.      < 

The  situation  to-day  is  the  same  as  in  the  days 
of  the  early  mission  schools.  The  German  com- 
mon school  is  the  home  of  humiHty  and  pious 
acceptance  of  authority.  Its  training  is  free, 
given  by  a  paternalistic  State.  The  Gymnasium 

17 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

is  the  stronghold  of  an  established  aristocracy. 
Before  the  war  ninety- two  per  cent  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Germany  were  in  the  common  school. 
Eight  per  cent  were  in  preparation  for  the  privi- 
leges of  aristocracy.  The  spirit  of  it  all  is  ex- 
pressed in  a  remark  made  to  the  writer  by  a 
German  university  professor  in  19 13  in  the  city 
of  Leipzig.  The  discussion  had  been  on  Amer- 
ican high  schools  and  the  1,200,000  students 
then  in  these  schools.  "Such  a  number  of  stu- 
dents in  German  higher  schools,"  said  the  pro- 
fessor of  pedagogy,  "would  be  the  gravest  kind 
of  a  social  menace."  * 


Ill 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
SYSTEM 

The  early  settlers  in  New  England  were  demo- 
cratic in  their  educational  ideals,  at  least  to  the 
point  of  demanding  that  every  one  should  have 
some  kind  of  training.  They  were  all  members 
of  the  same  social  class  in  theory  if  not  in  final 
practice.  But  the  traditions  of  the  Old  World 
and  the  natural  tendencies  toward  specialization 
were  strong  in  determining  the  form  of  organi- 
zation which  the  schools  even  of  that  democratic 
community  took  on.  There  soon  arose,  on 
the  one  hand,  a  higher  professional  school  with 
its  special  preparatory  schools  not  unlike  the 
aristocratic  schools  of  Europe,  and  on  the  other 
hand,  a  lower  common  school  which  gave  to 
the  ordinary  boy  and  girl  some  training  in  mat- 
ters of  religion  and  in  the  art  of  reading  necessary 
for  a  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the  Scriptures. 
The  common  school  was  in  form  much  like  its 
19 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

European  predecessors.  The  higher  professional 
school  was  not  a  part  of  the  popular  educational 
system.  The  subject-matter  of  instruction  in 
the  higher  school  was  determined  by  special 
vocational  demands.  The  lower  school  had  its 
wholly  non-professional  task  to  perform  and 
accordingly  used  non-professional  material  in 
its  teaching. 

The  statement  can  be  made  concrete  by  quot- 
ing descriptions  of  the  two  kinds  of  institutions 
which  appeared  in  the  earliest  years  of  New  Eng- 
land history.  The  first  of  the  higher  institutions 
was  Harvard  College,  founded  by  an  act  of  the 
General  Court  of  Massachusetts  Bay  in  October, 
1636.  The  early  charters  of  Harvard  set  forth 
the  general  purpose  of  the  institution  as  that  of 
taking  all  necessary  provisions  "that  may  con- 
duce to  the  education  of  the  English  and  Indian 
youth  of  this  country  in  knowledge  and  godli- 
ness." This  general  purpose  was,  however,  in 
reality  subordinate  to  a  special  purpose.  As  an 
investigator  of  the  occupations  of  the  early  grad- 
uates of  Harvard  has  put  the  matter  in  a  mono- 
graph issued  by  the  Bureau  of  Education:  — 
20 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

A  better  idea  of  the  motives  of  the  founders  than 
is  discernible  from  the  charter  may  be  gained  from  a 
quotation  from  New  England's  First  Fruits,  pub- 
lished in  1643,  the  year  after  the  first  class  grad- 
uated: — 

"One  of  the  next  things  we  longed  for,  and  looked 
after,  was  to  advance  learning  and  perpetuate  it  to 
posterity;  dreading  to  leave  an  illiterate  ministry  to 
the  churches,  when  our  present  ministers  shall  lie 
in  the  dust.  And  as  we  were  thinking  and  consult- 
ing how  to  effect  this  great  work,  it  pleased  God  to 
stir  up  the  heart  of  one  Mr.  Harvard  (a  godly  gentle- 
man and  a  lover  of  learning,  then  living  amongst 
us)  to  give  the  one  half  of  his  estate  toward  the  erect- 
ing of  a  college,  and  all  his  library." 

From  this  it  is  apparent  that  those  who  f oimded 
the  institution  primarily  had  in  mind  a  theological 
seminary.  The  professions  of  the  graduates  for  the 
early  period  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that  this  was 
practically  what  the  institution  was.  The  ministry 
was  the  one  profession  most  necessary,  most  de- 
manded by  the  society  of  that  time,  and  this  profes- 
sion more  than  any  other  required  an  advanced  edu- 
catioiL  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  to  find  this 
profession  dominant  during  the  early  years  of  Har- 
vard's history.  This  dominance  continues  for  over 
a  century,  and  not  imtil  the  period  immediately 
following  the  Revolutionary  War  does  any  other 
21 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

profession  claim  so  many  of  the  graduates  as  the 
ministry.* 

The  same  kind  of  a  statement  can  be  made  for 
Yale  and  the  other  early  schools  of  higher  learn- 
ing. Furthermore,  the  preparatory  schools  which 
grew  up  around  the  colleges  were  controlled  in 
the  organization  of  their  courses  of  study  by 
the  professional  character  of  the  college  courses. 
It  thus  came  to  pass  that  in  democratic  New 
England  there  appeared  a  group  of  institutions 
which,  in  form  of  organization  and  in  content  of 
the  course  of  study,  were  very  like  the  aristo- 
cratic schools  of  Europe.  Indeed,  the  Old- World 
models  were  closely  and  consciously  followed  in 
these  schools.  In  the  effort  to  provide  preachers 
for  their  congregations  the  Puritans  accepted  a 
kind  of  class  distinction  which  made  the  member 
of  the  professional  class  higher  than  the  common 
citizen. 

The  common  schools  of  that  day,  like  the  first 
common  schools  of  every  nation,  were  organized 

*  Bailey  B.  Burritt,  Professional  Distribution  of  College  and 
University  Graduates,  p.  15.  United  States  Bureau  of  Educa- 
tion, Bulletin,  191 2,  no.  19. 

22 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

to  give  religious  training  to  the  ordinary  boy  and 
girl  who  had  no  thought  of  entering  a  profession 
and  no  thought  of  social  exclusiveness.  These 
schools  were  provided  for  very  early  in  colonial 
history.  One  of  the  clearest  statements  of  the 
purpose  of  the  early  colonial  school  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Connecticut  statute  of  1650  which  may  be 
quoted  as  follows:  — 

It  being  one  chief  project  of  that  old  deluder,  Satan, 
to  keep  men  from  a  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  as 
in  former  times,  keeping  them  in  an  unknown  tongue, 
so  in  these  latter  times,  by  persuading  them  from  the 
use  of  tongues,  so  that,  at  least,  the  true  sense  and 
meaning  of  the  original  might  be  clouded  by  false 
glosses  of  saint-seeming  deceivers;  and  that  learning 
may  not  be  buried  in  the  grave  of  our  forefathers 
[the  court  decreed  that  whenever  a  township  in- 
creased to  fifty  householders  they  should  employ 
some  one]  to  teach  all  such  children  as  shall  resort 
to  him,  to  write  and  read. 

As  the  centers  of  religious  instruction  pro- 
vided for  in  this  and  hke  statutes  grew  up  in  the 
various  settlements,  they  tended  naturally  to  ex- 
pand the  scope  of  their  interests.  The  school- 
master became  a  teacher,  not  merely  of  the 
23 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

Scriptures,  but  also  of  the  simple  rules  of  arith- 
metic and  of  pemnanship.  Later  he  introduced 
geography  and  history.  The  expansion  of  the 
common  school  was  in  the  direction  of  general 
information,  not  toward  the  learned  professions. 
With  the  higher  professional  schools,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  common  school,  on  the  other, 
New  England  had  all  the  p>ossibilities  of  a  dual 
school  system.  But  such  was  not  the  system 
which  developed.  Let  us  consider  some  of  the 
reasons  why  the  dual  system  was  impossible.  Li 
the  first  place,  there  was  no  aristocracy  to  seize 
on  the  schools  as  a  means  oi  perpetuating  its 
power.  The  exclusive  professional  class  was  not 
hereditary  as  it  was  in  Europe.  It  could  be  en- 
tered by  any  boy  who  would  prepare  himself  to 
enter  the  clergy.  In  the  second  place,  the  reli- 
gion which  was  accepted  and  practiced  by  all 
was  a  common  code  of  personal  responsibilities 
and  in  this  code  one  man  was  like  every  other. 
Religion  tended  in  New  England  to  make  men 
obedient  to  God,  but  not  to  one  another.  The 
common  participation  in  the  church  service  made 
it  impossible  for  the  professional  aristocracy^  to 

H 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

keep  aloof  from  the  common  people.  Thus  it 
came  about  that  the  only  exclusive  class  created 
by  the  New  England  educational  system, 
namely,  the  clergy,  was  in  practical  life  brought 
back  into  the  most  intimate  contact  with  the 
ordinary  people.  Another  reason  grows  out  of 
the  frontier  conditions  which  obtained  even  a 
few  miles  out  of  Boston.  In  the  little  groups  of 
settlers  which  made  their  way  into  the  wilder- 
ness, exclusiveness  would  have  been  impossible 
had  any  one  desired  it.  There  was  in  each  settle- 
ment perhaps  one  boy  in  five  years  who  prepared 
for  college.  For  this  one  boy  there  could  be  no 
dual  school  system.  At  least  in  his  early  years, 
in  common  with  the  other  children,  he  was 
trained  in  letters  and  religion  by  the  one  and 
only  school  which  the  community  could  afford. 
Later  the  preacher  might  take  an  interest  in  giv- 
ing him  special  tutoring,  or  the  boy  might  be 
sent  for  a  time  to  a  preparatory  school.  In  either 
case  the  major  part  of  his  school  experience  was 
in  common  with  the  pupils  who  were  not  going 
to  a  professional  school. 
Under  conditions  such  as  have  been  sketched, 
25 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

only  one  possible  kind  of  exclusiveness  could 
grow  up.  The  higher  schools  could  detach  them- 
selves from  the  lower  schools  and  could  become 
separate  in  their  methods  and  in  their  content 
of  instruction.  There  was  no  possibility  of  a 
longitudinal  split  which  would  leave  two  parallel 
school  systems.  There  was  the  possibility  of  a 
breach  dividing  the  top  from  the  bottom.  This 
cleavage  in  the  vertical  unfortunately  came  and 
still  in  some  measure  divides  our  American 
schools. 

The  results  of  this  cleavage  between  upper  and 
lower  schools  will  be  considered  more  fully  later. 
For  the  present  we  turn  to  three  significant  facts 
with  regard  to  the  internal  organization  of  the 
early  schools  of  New  England  which  may  be 
referred  to  as  partial  antidotes  for  the  undemo- 
cratic cleavage  between  upper  and  lower  schools. 
The  inherent  push  toward  democracy  was  strong 
in  New  England  education  in  spite  of  the  handi- 
caps which  came  from  partial  imitation  of  Old- 
World  institutions. 

The  first  of  these  significant  facts  was  clearly 
set  forth  in  the  quotation  from  the  Connecticut 
26 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

statute  given  above.  The  early  school  of  New 
England  was  a  school  where  each  child  was 
brought  into  direct  personal  contact  with  the 
Scriptures.  The  Puritans  had  left  their  homes  in 
Europe  because  they  were  unwilling  to  ha,ve  any 
one  stand  between  the  individual  and  his  direct 
personal  contact  with  truth.  In  Europe  there 
had  been  human  authorities  who  parceled  out 
the  truth  as  they  saw  fit.  In  Europe  to-day  there 
is  the  same  spirit.  If  one  goes  to  a  German  Volks- 
schule,  one  finds  that  instruction  is  predomi- 
nantly oral.  The  teacher  gives  information  orally 
to  the  children.  This  information  has  the  stamp 
of  official  approval  and  it  is  oflScially  safeguarded. 
The  children  get  what  the  teacher  gives  and  no 
more.  There  is  no  reference  library  in  any 
Volksschule.  Even  in  such  a  subject  as  geography, 
there  is  no  textbook  full  of  facts  about  all  the 
countries  in  the  world.  The  most  impressive 
contrast  between  American  schools  and  those  of 
Europe  to-day  is  that  American  schools  are  read- 
ing schools  while  the  schools  of  Europe  are  schools 
where  instruction  is  given  orally  by  the  teacher. 
The  far-reaching  meaning  of  this  fact,  not 
27 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

alone  for  our  school  organization,  but  also  for 
our  national  life,  can  hardly  be  overstated.  The 
common  man  in  this  country  demands  the  right 
to  know  through  his  own  reading  what  is  hap- 
pening in  the  world.  It  may  be  that  our  news- 
papers are  sensational  and  full  of  matter  which 
cannot  be  defended  as  uplifting,  but  on  the  other 
side  it  is  equally  certain  that  they  bring  directly 
to  the  hands  of  the  common  people  the  materials 
out  of  which  public  opinion  is  made.  Our  people 
read  and  form  their  opinions.  There  is  no  author- 
ity which  they  will  accept  in  place  of  their  own 
judgments.  This  present-day  situation  has  its 
roots  in  the  fact  that  the  Puritans  established  a 
reading  school. 

In  a  number  of  countries  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic  there  are  to  be  found  newspapers  of 
a  type  which  the  American  cannot  understand. 
They  are  not  intended  to  be  complete  or  impar- 
tial. They  are  the  instruments  of  control  of  an 
aristocratic  government.  Such  newspapers  will 
always  be  found  in  countries  where  instruction 
in  the  common  school  is  oral. 

There  are  other  nations  in  the  world,  such  as 
'28 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

Mexico  and  Russia,  where  the  newspaper  can 
have  no  extensive  influence  because  the  people 
are  illiterate.  Democracy  may  be  threatened  by 
disorganization  in  such  countries,  but  democracy 
had  in  the  domination  of  a  skillful  aristocracy 
an  enemy  more  powerful  than  disorganization. 
The  Puritans  laid  the  only  sure  foundations  of 
both  democracy  and  organization  when  they 
established  a  school  which  lays  its  chief  emphasis 
on  reading  and  gives  unlimited  training  in  this 
art  to  every  boy  and  girl. 

The  second  general  fact  of  organization  which 
is  important  to  the  student  of  American  schools 
is  that  these  schools  were  local  in  their  manage- 
ment and  control.  If  we  put  the  matter  in  terms 
of  the  present-day  situation,  we  may  point  out 
that  there  is  no  other  great  nation  which  is 
without  a  national  minister  of  education  clothed 
with  authority.  In  the  United  States  there  is  no 
national  school  system,  no  Federal  authority  in 
charge  of  our  educational  organization.  There 
is  a  National  Bureau  of  Education  within  the 
Department  of  the  Interior,  but  its  functions  are 
purely  and  simply  those  of  collecting  statistical 
29 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

information  about  schools  and  taking  care  of 
Alaskan  reindeer.  Local  control  has  slowly  given 
place  in  the  more  progressive  States  to  centralized 
supervision  in  certain  matters.  The  growth  of 
central  authority  has,  however,  been  handi- 
capped by  jealousy  on  the  part  of  local  officials, 
with  the  result  that  State  departments  often 
have  little  more  authority  than  has  the  National 
Bureau. 

It  sometimes  requires  superlative  optimism 
to  be  complacent  under  the  present-day  local 
control  of  schools.  Back  in  the  old  days  of  the 
town  meeting  the  citizens  took  an  interest  in  the 
teacher,  the  course  of  study,  and  the  school  build- 
ing. They  were  aware  of  the  problems  that  arose 
in  educating  their  children.  All  through  our  his- 
tory individual  parents  have  been  interested  in 
these  problems,  sometimes  to  the  extent  of  inter- 
fering with  the  schools;  but  as  municipalities 
have  grown  the  public  has  often  allowed  its  large 
control  of  the  schools  to  slip  into  the  hands  of 
cheap  politicians  and  cowardly  servants.  Schools 
are  locally  controlled  to-day  —  often  very  badly. 

Li  1837,  Horace  Mann,  who  had  just  been 
30 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

appointed  secretary  of  the  State  Board  of  Edu- 
cation of  Massachusetts,  surveyed  the  schools 
of  that  State  and,  seeing  the  wretched  conditions 
which  resulted  from  lack  of  supervision,  made 
the  statement  that  the  greatest  catastrophe 
which  had  ever  come  to  the  State  was  the  crea- 
tion of  independent  school  districts. 

One  cannot  speak  too  vigorously  about  the 
defects  of  the  district  system  and  of  local  con- 
trol. There  is,  however,  one  compensation  for 
all  the  defects.  A  school  system  imder  local 
control  can  never  become  the  tool  of  an  aristo- 
cratic government.  American  schools  may  be  as 
bad  as  the  most  severe  critic  pleases,  but  they 
are  democratic. 

The  writer  recalls  a  conversation  with  the 
eminent  head  of  the  schools  of  Munich  who  had 
visited  American  schools  a  few  years  before. 
In  contrasting  German  schools  with  American 
schools  he  said:  "We  have  no  bad  schools  be- 
cause all  our  schools  are  controlled  from  above. 
But  we  have  no  superlatively  good  schools.  You 
in  America  have  all  kinds  from  the  very  worst 
to  the  very  best.  You  have  the  advantage  over 

31 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

us,  on  the  whole,  because  some  day  you  will  be 
led  by  the  examples  of  your  excellent  schools  to 
a  general  improvement."  This  is  the  view  of 
an  observer  of  democracy  who  is  not  deceived 
by  the  apparent  excellences  of  an  artificial  sys- 
tem. 

There  are  in  the  United  States  to-day  many 
plajis  and  much  discussion  dealing  with  this 
problem  of  local  control.  We  have  enjoyed 
nearly  to  the  full  the  fluctuating  fortunes  of 
local  reforms  and  counter-reforms.  We  have 
been  extremely  democratic  and  partially  cen- 
tralized. We  have  been  moving  gradually  in  the 
direction  of  more  control  by  State  departments. 
What  will  the  future  bring?  One  element  of  the 
answer  is  clear.  We  cannot  now  have  a  dual  and 
undemocratic  system  of  schools.  Local  control, 
whatever  its  shortcomings,  has  carried  us  past 
that  danger.  Our  task  now  is  the  constructive 
task  of  building  up  a  new  kind  of  central  con- 
trol—  one  which  grows  out  of  democracy  and 
preserves  its  contributions  while  eliminating  the 
defects  of  its  crude  beginnings. 

The  third  characteristic  of  the  New  England 
32 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

school  which  must  be  discussed  in  order  to  make 
clear  its  democratic  character  has  to  do  with 
its  neglect  of  vocational  training.  The  higher 
schools,  as  has  been  repeatedly  shown,  were 
vocational  schools  preparing  chiefly  for  the 
clergy.  The  lower  school  was  a  general  school 
making  no  vocational  distinctions  whatsoever. 
Everybody  had  a  soul  to  save,  and  that  was  the 
only  concern  of  the  common  school.  The  boy 
might  later  become  a  farmer  or  a  carpenter;  the 
girl  would  become  a  housewife;  but  these  were 
not  matters  for  the  common  school  to  think  of 
at  all. 

Perhaps  the  simplest  way  to  make  this  mat- 
ter clear  is  to  quote  a  statute  passed  by  Connec- 
ticut at  the  same  time  that  the  school  law  above 
quoted  brought  into  being  the  reading  school. 
This  statute  on  vocational  training  sets  up  an 
entirely  different  machinery  of  training  and  an 
absolutely  different  kind  of  governmental  control. 
The  law  required  that 

all  parents  and  masters  do  breed  and  bring  up 
their  children  and  apprentices  in  some  honest  lawful 
labor,  or  emplojTnent,  either  in  husbandry  or  some 

33 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

other  trade  profitable  for  themselves  and  the  com- 
monwealth, if  they  will  not  nor  cannot  train  them 
up  in  learning,  to  fit  them  for  higher  employments, 
and  if  any  of  the  selectmen,  after  admonition  by 
them  given  to  such  masters  of  families,  shall  find 
them  still  negligent  of  their  duty, .  .  .  the  said  select- 
men, with  the  help  of  two  magistrates,  shall  take  such 
children  or  apprentices  from  them,  and  place  them 
with  some  masters  for  years,  boys  until  they  come 
to  be  twenty-one,  and  girls  to  eighteen  years  of  age 
complete. 

This  statement  was  of  little  avail.  The  read- 
ing school  had  a  schoolmaster  to  promote  its 
interests.  Its  organization*  was  institutional 
and  effective.  Vocational  education  was  left  to 
diffuse  and  ineffective  control.  The  reason  why 
vocational  education  had  to  be  rediscovered  is 
perfectly  clear  in  view  of  this  history. 

The  omission  of  vocational  training  from  the 
schools  of  this  country  made  it  easy  for  these 
schools  to  develop  in  a  strictly  democratic 
fashion,  especially  during  the  period  when  edu- 
cation was  very  limited  in  its  scope.  If  only  a 
few  weeks  a  year  are  to  be  given  to  the  school- 
ing of  children,  there  is  enough  general  matter 

34 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

needed  by  all  of  them  to  fill  profitably  the  school 
day  and  the  school  year.  The  school  wiU  nat- 
urally be  limited  throughout  its  curriculum  to 
a  common  body  of  material  administered  alike 
to  all  pupils. 

We  are  facing  to-day  a  difficult  problem  in 
trying  to  keep  our  schools  democratic  and  at 
the  same  time  meet  the  demand  for  differen- 
tiated courses  giving  trade  training  to  some  and 
purely  academic  training  to  others.  This  pres- 
sure was  evaded  in  early  years  because  of  the 
simplicity  of  the  school  program.  As  schools 
developed,  however,  and  stretched  over  more 
days  and  years,  it  began  to  be  a  question  whether 
a  simple  body  of  common  material  is  all  that  is 
required.  Furthermore,  there  has  come  in  re- 
cent years  tremendous  social  pressure  from  the 
business  world.  We  are  told  by  manufacturers 
that  our  children  must  be  trained  in  industrial 
processes  if  America  is  to  compete  "with  the  Old 
World.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  na- 
tions have  given  children  training  in  the  voca- 
tions. This  training  has  made  them  skillful. 
To  be  sure,  specialized  training  has  been  easier 
35 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

to  organize  there  than  it  will  be  here  because  a 
boy  who  is  going  into  the  trades  over  there 
knows  it  early  and  is  willing  to  accept  obediently 
his  task  in  Ufe.  Our  democratic  system  is  con- 
fronted by  a  thousand  difficulties  not  known  in 
a  land  where  people  are  pigeon-holed  at  birth. 
But  we  must  do  something.  What  shall  it  be? 

Just  before  the  war  there  were  some  self- 
appointed  prophets  who  clamored  in  our  ears 
that  we  must  follow  the  example  of  Prussia. 
They  were  proposing  to  our  legislatures  the 
passing  of  laws  that  should  divide  our  school 
system  into  two  compartments.  These  voices 
are  not  yet  silent,  and  when  the  stress  of  indus- 
trialism comes  in  the  future  America  will  again 
be  called  on  to  defend  the  fundamental  democ- 
racy of  her  common  schools.  The  future  defense 
cannot  lie  in  neglecting  vocational  education. 
There  must  be  a  positive  policy  to  meet  our 
needs.  This  positive  policy  will  doubtless  change 
the  character  of  the  upper  grades  of  our  elemen- 
tary schools.  Courses  will  be  offered  to  meet 
the  many  needs  of  different  children.  In  order 
to  keep  the  children  in  these  many  different 
36 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SYSTEM 

courses  interested  in  a  central  body  of  common 
material  there  will  have  to  be  a  new  study  of 
what  is  required  to  train  a  citizen  of  a  democ- 
racy. There  will  be  much  need  of  wise  counsel 
and  careful  experimentation. 

There  is  one  lesson  that  our  past  should  teach 
us.  We  must  not  seek  an  easy  solution  of  our 
problem  by  borrowing  a  European  institution. 
We  did  that  once  with  sad  consequences,  as  the 
next  chapter  will  show. 


IV 

UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

The  natural  evolution  of  the  schools  of  the 
United  States  received  a  very  material  check 
through  the  importation  into  this  country  be- 
tween 1840  and  1850  of  the  German  Volksschule. 
The  conditions  that  led  to  this  disastrous  im- 
portation of  a  foreign  institution  had  long  been 
in  process  of  preparation.  The  spirit  of  colonial 
days  with  its  rigorous  devotion  to  religion  and 
its  violent  reaction  against  European  modes  of 
life  had  given  place  to  a  new  spirit  of  secularism 
and  to  a  lack  of  rigid  control  in  the  various  dis- 
tricts which  made  it  very  easy  for  public-minded 
leaders  to  desire  something  like  the  organiza- 
tion exhibited  in  Europe. 

During  the  period  immediately  following  the 
Revolution  the  schools  of  the  United  States 
sank  to  a  lower  ebb  than  ever  before.  The  peo- 
ple of  different  States  had  very  different  ideals 
in  such  matters  and  there  was  no  national  su- 
38 


UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

pervision  of  schools.  Indeed,  when  the  States 
framed  the  Constitution  there  was  no  disposi- 
tion to  take  up  matters  of  education.  The  New 
England  educational  plan,  which  grew  out  of 
the  town  meeting  and  the  demand  for  strict 
religious  instruction,  was  not  acceptable  to  the 
Virginian  who  had  grown  up  in  a  region  of  great 
plantations  and  private  tutoring.  When  the 
Constitution  was  written  education  was  left 
out,  leaving  the  States  and  smaller  communi- 
ties to  deal  with  their  own  problems. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at  that  these 
smaller  units  of  population  neglected  educa- 
tional matters  in  their  efforts  to  meet  the  first 
emergencies  of  community  life.  They  were  ab- 
sorbed in  making  roads  and  developing  indus- 
tries. The  house  has  to  be  built  before  the  fam- 
ily life  of  the  home  can  begin,  and  so  the  school 
waited  for  other  matters  of  more  obvious  and 
immediate  concern. 

How  meager  the  school  equipment  was  can 
be  learned  from  some  of  the  original  dociraients. 
The  following  extracts  from  a  school  report  of 
1801  made  by  a  committee  in  Taunton,  Massa- 

39 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

chusetts,  show  what  schools  were  like  in  that 
day:  — 

January  6th,  1801.  Your  committee  visited  a 
school  kept  in  Rueben  Richmond's  house  instructed 
by  Mrs.  Nabby  Williams  of  32  scholars.  This  school 
appeared  in  an  uncultivated  state  the  greater  part 
of  the  scholars. 

On  the  26  of  Feb.,  visited  Mrs.  Nabby  Williams' 
school  the  second  time  and  found  that  the  scholars 
had  made  great  proficiency  in  reading,  spelling, 
writing  and  some  in  the  granmiar  of  the  English 
language. 

Nov.  loth,  the  committee  visited  and  examined 
two  Schools  just  opened;  one  kept  in  a  school  house, 
near  Baylies  works,  of  the  number  of  40  scholars, 
instructed  by  Mr.  Philip  Lee.  This  School  we  found 
to  have  made  but  small  proficiency  in  reading,  spell- 
ing and  writing,  and  to  be  kept  only  six  or  seven 
weeks;  upon  inquiry  why  it  should  be  taught  no 
longer,  we  were  informed  that  the  ratio  of  school 
money  for  this  School  was  and  had  been  usually 
expended  in  paying  the  Master  both  for  his  service 
and  board,  and  in  purchasing  the  fire  wood  which  is 
contrary  to  the  usual  custom  of  the  town. 

The  other  School,  visited  the  same  day,  was  kept 
near  John  Reed's  consisting  of  the  number  of  be- 
tween 30  and  40  Scholars  instructed  by  Mr.  William 
40 


UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

Reed;  This  School,  being  formed  into  regular  classes, 
appeared  to  have  made  a  good  and  pleasing  pro- 
ficiency in  reading,  spelling,  writing,  some  in  arith- 
metic and  others  in  the  Grammar  of  the  English 
language.  This  School's  share  of  school  money  is 
expended  to  pay  the  Master  for  his  service  only,  so 
that  the  School  will  be  continued  three  months. 

On  the  8th  day  of  December  they  visited  a  School 
kept  in  a  School  house  near  Seth  Hodges,  in  number 
30  Scholars  instructed  by  Mr.  John  Dunbar.  This 
School  appeared  in  a  good  way  of  learning,  and  to  be 
keep  four  months. 

Jan.  9th,  1 801,  visited  a  School  kept  by  Mr. 
Thomas  Macomber  at  the  house  of  one  Caswel  in 
the  precinct  of  35  scholars.  This  School  appeared 
very  imcultivated.  Many  Scholars  were  not  fur- 
nished with  books,  a  striking  mark  of  negligence 
some  where.  This  evil  must  have  a  remedy,  if  we 
expect  to  receive  the  benefit  of  a  school  education. 

Feby.  23rd,  again  visited  Mr.  Macomber's  school 
the  scholars  remain  uncultivated  and  in  a  poor  way 
to  improve  an  evident  mark  of  neglect  of  their  parents 
in  furnishing  books  is  a  great  evil  in  this  school.  The 
committee  were  unable  to  judge  of  the  improvement 
of  this  school  as  its  situation  was  changed,  and  a 
great  part  were  new  faces.  Whenever  a  School 
changes  ground,  it  ought  to  be  the  duty  of  the  School 

41 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

Masters  to  give  notice  to  the  Committee  for  the 
change  is  so  great  that  it  is  ahnost  like  closing  a 
School. 

Feby.  26th,  visited  Mr.  Dean's  School  2  time,  the 
Scholars  were  crowded  into  a  small  room,  the  air 
was  exceedingly  noxious.  Many  children  were 
obliged  to  tarry  at  home  for  want  of  room  and 
though  the  school  was  kept  only  a  few  weeks  they 
were  deprived  of  its  advantages.  A  want  of  books 
was  the  complaint.  The  committee  were  anxiously 
desirous  that  this  evil  might  have  a  remedy  and  were 
of  opinion  it  may  be  easily  done.  The  Scholars  ap- 
peared to  increase  in  knowledge  &  claim  our  appro- 
bation. 

March  5th,  visited  two  schools,  one  kept  at  Mr. 
Aaron  Pratt's  of  the  nmnber  of  30  scholars  instructed 
by  Mr.  Philip  Drown.  This  school  appeared  quite 
unimproved,  and  uncultivated  in  reading  and  spell- 
ing, some  of  them  did  better  in  writing.  This  imcul- 
tivated  state  did  not  appear  to  be  from  a  fault  in  the 
children  but,  as  your  committee  were  informed,  from 
the  disadvantage  of  having  had  masters  illegally 
qualified  for  their  instruction;  of  which  class  is  their 
present  master  unauthorized  by  law.* 

*  Reprinted  in  the  Report  of  the  School  Committee  of  the  City 
of  Taunton,  Mass.,  for  the  year  ending  December  31,  191S. 
pp.  68-73. 

43 


UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

The  conditions  shown  m  these  quotations  did 
not  improve  materially  for  thirty-five  years. 
There  was  no  regular  course  of  study.  Some- 
times the  teacher  was  fairly  well  trained  and 
was  eager  to  give  the  pupils  a  broad  training. 
More  commonly  this  was  not  true.  In  any  case 
the  course  of  study  depended  on  the  training  of 
the  teacher  and  the  wiU  of  the  community. 

The  school  year  was  at  most  a  few  weeks  in 
the  winter.  At  this  time  in  the  year  the  pupils 
could  be  spared  from  the  work  of  the  farm.  The 
cost  of  keeping  schools  in  operation  had  to  be 
considered,  and  most  communities  were  slow  to 
keep  the  schools  open  for  any  great  length  of 
time  because  of  the  expense  entailed.  Schools 
of  four  months'  duration  were  considered  long 
and  generous.  Many  communities  were  satis- 
fied with  much  less. 

The  duration  of  a  pupil's  school  career  was  at 
that  time  quite  indefinite.  The  big  boys  and 
girls  of  the  district  came  to  school  year  after 
year.  If  the  teacher  was  able  to  manage  them, 
they  stayed.  If  not,  they  sometimes  disposed 
of  the  teacher,  and  sometimes  retired  peace- 

43 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

fully  only  to  try  the  experiment  again  the  next 
year  with  the  new  teacher.  The  only  governing 
consideration  in  most  cases  was  the  possession 
by  the  boy  or  girl  of  the  necessary  leisure  and 
inclination.  Girls  went  imtil  they  got  married 
and  boys  imtil  they  hired  out  or  became  respon- 
sible citizens  with  more  important  duties  to  per- 
form. 

Such  conditions  could  not  go  on  indefinitely. 
After  communities  became  prosperous  and  after 
the  most  urgent  problems  of  mere  living  had 
been  solved,  there  arose  a  demand  for  better 
schools.  The  State  was  called  in  to  supervise 
and  direct  this  public  interest.  Indeed,  the  mid- 
dle of  the  last  century  was  a  period  of  general 
assertion  by  the  States  of  their  rights  and  of 
general  assumption  at  State  capitals  of  duties 
of  public  organization. 

In  1837,  the  State  of  Massachusetts  organ- 
ized a  board  of  education  and  appointed  Hor- 
ace Mann  as  its  executive  secretary.  At  about 
the  same  period  New  York,  Ohio,  and  Michigan 
began  to  work  out  new  school  laws  and  estab- 
lish improved  schools. 

44 


UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  leaders  of  that  day 
should  be  shocked  by  what  they  found  in  the 
schools.  The  lack  of  organization  and  the  ab- 
sence of  supervision  were  too  obvious  to  es- 
cape attention.  It  is  vain  to  speculate  on  what 
might  have  happened  if  these  leaders  had  worked 
out  an  American  institution.  What  they  did 
was  to  accept  the  European  model. 

There  was  in  1830  in  Prussia  a  school  organi- 
zation of  the  same  type  as  that  which  exists  to- 
day. The  essential  features  were  sketched  in  an 
earlier  chapter.  There  was  a  religious  com- 
mon school.  This  school  drew  its  teachers  from 
a  separate  normal  training  school.  Its  course 
of  study  was  exclusively  vernacular  and  rudi- 
mentary, but  it  was  compact  in  its  organization. 
Its  discipline  of  the  children  was  complete.  It 
was  the  servant  of  the  State  and  under  the  most 
complete  supervision  of  the  ofl&cers  of  the  State. 
Entirely  apart  from  this  common  school  was 
the  school  of  the  aristocracy  with  its  connec- 
tions with  higher  institutions.  In  short,  the 
Prussian  school  system  was  a  machine  running 
smoothly,  and  it  was  well  in  hand  under  the 

45 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

supervision  of  officials  who  were  equipped  with 
authority  to  control  its  operations. 

It  is  little  wonder  that  American  leaders  were 
impressed  by  the  organization  of  the  Prus- 
sian schools.  Their  enthusiasm  found  expres- 
sion in  statements  full  of  praise  and  in  active 
efforts  to  induce  American  legislatures  to  imi- 
tate the  Prussian  organization.  The  story  of 
this  period  is  vividly  told  in  a  bulletin  of  the 
United  States  Bureau  of  Education  prepared  by 
Mr.  F.  F.  Bunker. 

Quotations  from  three  of  ^e  documents  of 
that  period  will  give  the  reader  a  view  of  the 
earnestness  of  these  advocates  of  the  Prussian 
system.  Mr.  Bunker's  paragraph  introducing 
one  of  these  quotations  may  be  quoted  with 
the  paragraph  itself  as  follows:  — 

In  1843  Horace  Mann  visited  the  schools  of  Ger- 
many and  of  other  European  countries.  An  account 
of  his  visit  is  given  in  his  seventh  annual  report  to 
the  board  of  education  of  Massachusetts  (January, 
1844).  In  this  report  he  recommended  the  organiza- 
tion and  grading  of  the  German  schools  in  the  follow- 
ing words:  — 

46 


UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

"I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  there  are  many 
things  abroad  which  we  at  home  should  do  well  to 
imitate  —  things,  some  of  which  are  here  as  yet  mere 
matters  of  speculation  and  theory,  but  which,  there, 
have  long  been  in  operation  and  are  now  producing 
a  harvest  of  rich  and  abundant  blessings.  Among  the 
nations  of  Europe  Prussia  has  long  enjoyed  the  most 
distinguished  reputation  for  the  excellence  of  its 
schools.  In  reviews,  in  speeches,  in  tracts,  and  even 
in  graver  works  devoted  to  the  cause  of  education, 
its  schools  have  been  exhibited  as  models  for  the  imi- 
tation of  the  rest  of  Christendom."  ^ 

Again  from  a  pamphlet  by  Charles  Brooks 
published  in  1864  is  extracted  the  following:  — 

"The  Prussian  system,  with  its  two  central  powers, 
a  board  of  education,  and  normal  schools,  was  not 
known  in  New  England  when  I  first  described  it,  in 
public,  in  1835;  but  on  the  19th  of  April,  1838,  Mas- 
sachusetts, the  banner  State,  adopted  State  normal 
schools  by  statute.  Remembering  well  how  the  good 
leaven  spread  in  1835-1838, 1  say  it  was  the  Prussian 
S)^tem  which  wrought  out  the  educational  regenera- 
tion of  New  England."  ^ 

*  Frank  Forest  Bunker,  Reorganization  of  the  Public  School 
System,  pp.  24-25.  United  States  Bureau  of  Education,  Bulle- 
tin, 1916,  no.  8. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  32. 

47 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

Finally,  from  a  Western  State  comes  the  state- 
ment made  by  a  superintendent  of  public  edu- 
cation, Francis  W.  Shearman,  of  Michigan,  in 
1852:  — 

"The  system  of  public  instruction  which  was  in- 
tended to  be  established  by  the  framers  of  the  con- 
stitution [Michigan],  the  conception  of  the  office,  its 
province,  its  powers,  and  duties  were  derived  from 
Prussia."  ^ 

The  enthusiasm  for  Prussia  had  its  effects 
not  only  in  the  United  States,  but  also  in  Can- 
ada. Ryerson,  the  superintopdent  of  schools 
who  gave  form  to  the  system  of  Ontario  in  the 
late  forties,  explicitly  acknowledged  his  indebt- 
edness to  Prussia  for  the  course  of  study  of  the 
elementary  schools. 

One  very  striking  fact  about  this  whole  move- 
ment is  that  it  was  limited  to  the  common 
schools.  One  can  hardly  help  wondering  at  this 
distance  why  these  enthusiasts  did  not  borrow 
the  higher  schools  as  well.  Perhaps  the  answer 
to  this  question  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
they  were  democratic  enough  to  be  interested 
*  Frank  Forest  Bunker,  op.  cit.,  p.  23. 
48 


UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

only  in  the  common  people.  It  was  the  common 
school  of  this  country  which  was  chaotic.  It  was 
the  common  school  which  lacked  clearly  de- 
fined aims  and  ends.  There  were  certain  higher 
schools  in  the  coimtry,  but  they  were  able  to 
take  care  of  themselves  fairly  well.  The  com- 
mon schools  were  important  because  they  dealt 
with  more  people  and  were  entirely  dependent 
on  public  support. 

Whatever  the  reason,  it  is  quite  certain  that 
it  was  the  Volksschule,  not  the  Gymnasium,  that 
was  borrowed.  This  borrowing  would  not  have 
been  so  disastrous  as  it  was  if  the  negative  char- 
acteristics of  the  Volksschide  were  not  so  essen- 
tially a  part  of  that  institution.  The  Volksschide 
is  intended  to  terminate  the  training  of  the 
common  people.  Its  material  of  instruction  is 
selected  with  this  end  constantly  in  view.  Limi- 
tation of  educational  opportunity  is  not  acciden- 
tal or  due  merely  to  meagemess  of  opportunity. 
In  the  Volksschule  limitation  is  conscious,  ex- 
plicit, and  a  definite  part  of  the  whole  scheme. 

The  Volksschule  is  negative  in  that  it  for- 
bids teaching  a  foreign  language  or  algebra. 

49 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

Advanced  subjects  are  verboten  because  such 
advanced  subjects  might  disturb  the  social 
equilibrium.  It  was  this  negative,  explicitly 
limiting  school  which  in  the  middle  of  the  last 
century  we  exchanged  for  our  chaotic  and  only 
partially  successful  district  school.  So  it  has 
come  about  that  for  three  quarters  of  a  century 
American  boys  and  girls  have  been  compelled 
to  spend  the  first  years  of  their  school  lives 
within  the  artificial  walls  that  the  traditions  of 
medievalism  and  the  will  of  aristocracy  have 
thrown  around  the  common  people  of  Ger- 
many. 

The  negative  characteristics  of  the  course  of 
study  of  the  common  schools  were  not  seriously 
harmful  in  1850  because  the  schools  were  lim- 
ited in  other  ways.  The  school  year  was  short. 
There  was  not  time  enough  to  go  far  afield  in 
the  world  of  knowledge.  That  the  school  must 
hold  to  the  vernacular  and  to  rudiments  was 
dictated  in  some  measure  by  the  meagerness  of 
support  to  the  school  itself.  Teachers,  too,  were 
little  trained,  and  they  could  hardly  have  done 
more  even  if  it  had  been  demanded.  So  the  bor- 
50 


UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

rowing  of  a  limited  school  was  no  such  misdeed 
as  it  would  be  to-day.  We  may  even  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  it  was  not  the  borrowing  that  did 
the  harm.  We  of  a  later  generation  are  in  re- 
ality the  sinners,  for  we  have  blindly  followed 
the  example  of  the  Volksschule  long  after  it  be- 
came evident  —  painfully  evident  —  that  this 
school  did  not  belong  in  America. 

The  limited  course  of  study  borrowed  in  1840 
became  undesirable  just  as  soon  as  the  school 
year  was  lengthened  sufficiently  so  that  the  ru- 
dimentary branches  did  not  supply  adequate 
material  for  the  years  of  elementary  instruc- 
tion. Take  for  example  arithmetic.  There  was 
perhaps  enough  arithmetic  to  last  for  twelve 
or  sixteen  weeks  a  year  through  eight  years. 
But  when  twelve  weeks  were  expanded  into 
five  months,  and  later  into  six,  seven,  eight,  and 
nine,  it  became  quite  impossible  for  arithmetic 
to  be  legitimately  extended  so  as  to  fill  the  time. 
The  fact  is  that  later  generations  of  teachers 
should  have  known  enough  to  realize  that  they 
had  reached  the  end  of  arithmetic,  but  they 
were  dominated  by  the  Volksschule  idea  of  hold- 
Si 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

ing  to  rudimentary  courses.  They  exercised  all 
the  ingenuity  they  had  in  trying  to  inflate  arith- 
metic so  that  it  would  seem  to  fill  the  elemen- 
tary course.  They  put  in  impossible  and  gro- 
tesque problems  and  they  gathered  together 
matters  from  the  world  of  economics  which 
were  entirely  unintelligible  to  children,  but  they 
saw  to  it  that  children  did  not  escape  from  the 
rudimentary  mathematics,  which  is  arithmetic. 

Nor  was  the  evil  of  the  Prussian  example 
limited  to  what  it  gave  in  the  way  of  artificial 
emphasis  on  rudiments.  Wheh  we  took  over  the 
Volksschule  we  did  no  halfway  borrowing.  We 
made  it  the  only  lower  school.  At  home  the  Prus- 
sian aristocrat  provides  for  his  own  boy  another 
school  where  opportunity  is  unlimited.  In  the 
aristocratic  school  there  is  no  need  for  inflating 
arithmetic  because  the  boy  is  pushed  as  soon 
as  possible  into  higher  subjects.  In  America  we 
did  not  set  up  the  Volksschule  plus  something 
else;  we  made  the  limited  school  the  vestibule 
to  our  whole  educational  scheme.  The  result 
has  been  that  we  have  deliberately  held  back 
those  destined  to  take  higher  courses.  For  ex- 
52 


UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

ample,  with  us  the  doctor  arrives  late  at  his 
professional  maturity  because  he  spent  so  much 
time  and  effort  on  rudiments  in  the  element- 
ary school.  He  was  kept  back  when  he  ought 
to  have  gone  forward  into  the  advanced  sub- 
jects which  would  have  prepared  him  for  his 
profession. 

In  Prussia  the  doctor-in-training  is  not  sub- 
ject to  the  limitations  of  the  Volksschule.  The 
boy  in  Germany  who  is  to  be  a  doctor  is  edu- 
cated in  the  Gymnasium.  In  that  school  he  is 
rushed  into  the  advanced  subjects  just  as  early 
as  possible.  There  is  no  marking  time.  The 
professional  goal  is  always  in  sight,  and  the 
tracks  are  cleared  ahead  for  the  journey.  The 
result  is  that  the  German  doctor  enters  his  pro- 
fession two  years  ahead  of  the  American  doctor. 
Those  two  years  are  of  the  greatest  significance 
in  a  professional  career.  They  supply  the  mar- 
gin that  makes  of  the  average  physician  abroad 
a  scientist  as  well  as  a  practitioner.  This  ex- 
plains why  our  physicians  used  to  go  abroad  to 
learn  the  advanced  science  of  their  profession. 

Whether  we  think  of  the  effect  of  the  bor- 
53 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

rowing  of  1840  on  the  elementary  school  or  on 
the  other  branches  of  our  educational  system, 
it  is  evident  that  there  is  only  one  formula  which 
we  ought  now  to  adopt.  This  borrowing  must 
be  corrected  by  whatever  reorganization  is  nec- 
essary. 

The  upper  grades  of  the  elementary  school 
are  the  points  where  reform  must  begin  and 
where  it  must  be  most  radical.  Our  seventh  and 
eighth  grades  show  more  than  any  other  grades 
the  blighting  influences  of  the  Prussian  exam- 
ple. In  the  effort  to  keep  the%e  grades  rudimen- 
tary, they  have  been  filled  with  the  most  monot- 
onous, unnecessary,  and  discouraging  reviews. 
Seventh-  and  eighth-grade  teachers  are  more 
than  half  aware  that  elementary  education  is 
over  when  pupils  enter  these  grades.  So  they 
labor  conscientiously  to  polish  the  product  of 
these  schools.  They  go  over  and  over  again 
work  which  has  been  completed  in  earlier  years. 
They  keep  young  minds,  which  are  eager  to 
push  out  into  the  world,  forcibly  restrained  by 
a  kind  of  trivial  intellectual  busy-work.  They 
hold  the  high  school  before  the  pupils  of  the 

54 


UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

eighth  grade  as  a  place  where  one  can  succeed 
only  when  one  is  perfect  in  arithmetic  and  oral 
reading  and  spelling.  The  curious  part  of  the 
situation  is  that  every  elementary-school  teacher 
who  has  been  through  high  school  knows  full 
well  that  one  does  not  have  to  be  perfect  in  any- 
thing, least  of  all  in  arithmetic,  oral  reading,  and 
spelling,  to  be  an  honored  member  of  the  stu- 
dent body  of  a  high  school.  The  insistent  re- 
views of  the  eighth  grade  are  not  real  needs  of 
the  twentieth  century.  They  are  inheritances 
from  a  far-oflf  land  and  a  long-past  day.  From 
that  remote  place  and  time  there  came  the  edict 
that  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  common  folk 
shall  be  taught  for  eight  years  and  that  then 
the  teaching  shall  cease.  The  American  teacher 
who  halts  before  the  eight-year  line  is  con- 
trolled, not  by  a  real  fact,  but  by  an  imaginary 
boundary. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  AN  UNDIVIDED 
EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM 

The  Volksschule  has  been  an  obstacle  to  our 
educational  development,  but  fortunately  it 
has  not  supplied  the  only  form  of  school  organi- 
zation in  this  coimtry.  Even  its  outward  forms 
have  never  become  universal.  The  Volksschule 
is  an  eight-year  school.  Our^  schools  have  been 
largely  drawn  into  this  form  of  organization, 
but  there  has  always  been  a  fringe  of  experi- 
mentation which  has  saved  us  from  a  rigid  sys- 
tem. In  New  England  we  have  nine-  and  ten- 
year  elementary  schools.  In  the  Southern  States 
we  have,  especially  since  the  Civil  War,  whole 
State  systems  with  only  seven-year  elementary 
schools.  In  all  parts  of  the  coimtry  there  are 
schools  which  have  forms  of  organization  other 
than  that  dictated  by  the  Prussian  example. 

Perhaps  the  most  notable  deviation  from  the 
eight-year  program  is  to  be  found  in  the  sys- 
56 


AN  UNDIVIDED  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM 

tern  of  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  where  seven-year 
schools  have  been  in  successful  operation  for  a 
generation. 

Not  only  has  practice  thus  differed,  but  there 
has  been  strong  advocacy  in  earlier  years  of 
reforms  of  even  more  radical  types.  The  Com- 
mittee of  Ten  of  the  National  Education  Asso- 
ciation proposed  in  the  early  nineties  a  com- 
plete revision  of  the  elementary  program  so  that 
the  school  below  the  high  school  should  be  only 
six  years  in  length. 

Against  these  radical  influences  the  Volks- 
schule  has  been  able  to  stand  and  stands  to-day 
as  the  most  common  type  of  organization.  Espe- 
cially subtle  is  its  influence  in  limiting  the  course 
of  study.  Even  where,  as  in  New  England,  more 
than  eight  years  have  been  given  to  the  elemen- 
tary school,  the  additional  time  has  been  wasted 
in  useless  reviews  and  repetitions. 

Reforms  in  the  elementary  school  promise  to 
be  made  from  above  if  not  from  within.  If  the 
elementary-school  teachers  do  not  change  the 
character  of  seventh-  and  eighth-grade  instruc- 
tion, it  is  likely  that  the  high  school  will  compel 

57 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

the  change  and  that  pressure  from  the  profes- 
sional schools  will  help  the  reform. 

The  intimate  influence  of  the  upper  schools  on 
the  elementary  schools  of  this  country  is  one  of 
the  factors  of  the  educational  situation  which 
has  no  parallel  in  Prussia.  There  the  VolksschtUe 
has  gone  on  its  way  undemocratized  because  it  is 
a  separate  school.  The  moment  this  school  was 
transplanted  to  America,  it  was  given  a  new  set- 
ting, and  this  new  setting  resulted  in  changes 
which,  though  gradual,  are  sure  to  transform  it 
ultimately  and  make  it  into  something  that  it 
could  not  be  on  its  native  soil. 

Before  the  common  school  was  made  over  to 
fit  the  Prussian  example,  there  had  been  growing 
up  in  America  a  peculiarly  American  institution 
which  was  not  seriously  disturbed  in  its  evolution 
by  the  borrowing  of  1840.  This  was  the  American 
academy. 

All  through  the  eighteenth  century  academies 
had  appeared  in  response  to  popular  demand.  In 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  they  flour- 
ished. In  villages  and  towns  surrounded  by 
groups  of  district  schools  academies  were  estab- 
58 


AN  UNDIVroED  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM 

lished  for  older  pupils.  Not  infrequently  such  a 
school  was  supported  by  some  evangelical  organi- 
zation which  was  keenly  alive  to  the  desirability 
of  combining  the  secular  and  religious  instruction 
of  its  young  people.  Sometimes  the  academy  was 
endowed  by  a  citizen  or  was  maintained  out  of 
tuition  fees  and  a  small  subsidy  from  the  public 
taxes.  In  any  case,  it  expressed  the  demand  on 
the  part  of  the  people  for  something  beyond  that 
which  the  district  school  could  supply. 

The  ambitions  of  the  academy  were  un- 
bounded. The  course  of  study  included  what- 
ever the  teachers  knew.  So  the  academy  offered 
courses  in  metaphysics  and  theology,  in  art  and 
literature.  Foreign  languages,  especially  French, 
were  taught.  General  history  and  other  subjects 
intended  to  broaden  the  experiences  of  students 
were  conspicuous  in  the  curriculum.  All  this 
wealth  of  training  was  open  to  girls  as  well  as 
boys. 

To  be  sure,  there  are  evidences  that  this  en- 
riched course  of  study  was  influenced  not  a  little 
by  the  practices  of  the  older  grammar  school. 
There  was  no  escape  from  the  classical  traditions 

59 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

of  that  school,  and  the  academy  in  order  to  be 
respectable  offered  what  the  grammar  school 
offered.  A  curious  mixture  grew  up  as  a  result. 
The  ambition  of  the  common  people  was  to  give 
to  all  the  young  people  a  broad  and  complete 
education.  They  could  not  satisfy  their  own 
ambition  without  including  in  the  new  school  all 
that  had  been  approved  in  the  higher  schools  of 
the  past. 

When  in  due  time,  after  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  high  school  of  the  type  which 
is  common  to-day  united  the  grammar  school 
and  the  academy  into  a  single  institution,  the 
mixture  of  ambitions  and  the  composite  course 
of  study  were  taken  over  into  the  new  school.  It 
is  quite  possible  to  hear  to-day  at  any  meeting 
of  high-school  teachers  the  echoes  of  the  old  dis- 
pute. Is  a  high  school  a  classical  school  prepara- 
tory to  the  college  and  to  the  professions,  or  is 
the  high  school  the  higher  common  school? 

Several  facts  should  be  emphasized  in  order 
that  we  may  fully  understand  the  influence  of 
the  academy  and  of  the  high  school  on  the  evo- 
lution of  the  common  school.  First,  the  high 
60 


AN  UNDIVIDED  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM 

school  as  it  was  finally  developed  out  of  the 
fusion  of  the  two  older  schools  was  open  to  all 
comers.  The  only  requirement  was  the  comple- 
tion of  the  elementary  course.  Second,  this  school 
came  in  due  time  to  be  as  free  as  the  common 
school.  Third,  boys  and  girls  entered  on  a  like 
footing  and  have  continued  to  have  equally  free 
access  to  the  enlarged  opportunity.  The  Ameri- 
can high  school  is  in  reality  a  part  of  the  free 
public-school  system.  In  our  day  progressive 
States  have  fully  recognized  this  and  have  per- 
fected the  organization  to  the  point  where  every 
boy  or  girl  in  the  State  is  provided  with  free 
admission  to  some  high  school  even  where  there 
is  none  in  the  immediate  district  in  which  he  or 
she  lives.  In  such  cases  the  home  district  or  the 
State  pays  tuition  and  in  some  cases  the  cost  of 
travel.  As  a  part  of  the  public-school  system, 
the  high  school  has  influenced  the  other  branch 
of  this  system  —  the  elementary  school. 

The  influence  of  one  school  on  the  other  has 

grown  stronger  as  the  number  of  pupils  passing 

on  from  the  lower  school  has  increased.  It  is  an  . 

important  fact  for  elementary  schools  that  to- 

6i 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

day  it  is  the  desire  of  the  great  majority  of  fairi- 
ilies  that  their  children  have  a  high-school  course. 
This  is  in  part  a  result  of  economic  prosperity. 
The  majority  of  families  can  afford  to  give  their 
children  more  schooling  than  is  provided  by  the 
elementary  school.  In  part  the  desire  is  an  expres- 
sion of  a  genuine  respect  for  training.  At  all 
events,  the  result  is  very  impressive.  There  are 
at  the  present  time  in  the  high  schools  of  the 
United  States  thirty  per  cent  of  all  who  are  of 
high-school  age.  This  numerical  fact  alone  shows 
how  far  progress  has  been  mad^  toward  the  fusion 
of  the  elementary  school  with  the  high  school. 

The  foregoing  paragraphs  make  clear  the  his- 
torical reason  why  we  do  not  have  in  the  United 
States  two  different  school  systems  —  one  ele- 
mentary and  the  other  advanced.  In  this  country 
the  high  school  literally  grew  out  of  the  elemen- 
tary school.  The  separation  between  the  com- 
mon school  and  the  grammar  school  which  might 
have  led  to  two  school  systems  was  obliterated 
by  the  evolution  of  the  academy  and  the  amalga- 
mation of  the  academy  with  the  grammar  school. 
The  academy  was  an  institution  of  the  common 
62 


AN  UNDIVIDED  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM 

f)eople  and  it  dominated  the  organization  of  the 
high  school  far  enough  to  prevent  any  paralleling 
in  the  high  school  of  the  work  of  the  elementary 
school.  The  American  high  school  is  thus  dif- 
ferent from  all  European  secondary  schools;  the 
latter  always  include  primary  grades  and  inter- 
mediate grades  as  well  as  the  upper  grades  which 
are  alone  included  in  our  high  schools. 

Thus  it  has  come  about  that  in  America  we 
have  a  single  continuous  school  system.  What- 
ever the  differences  between  the  schools  within 
this  system,  in  outward  form  we  have  a  single 
imified  system. 

It  may  be  well  to  digress  for  a  little  at  this 
point  in  order  to  show  how  important  is  the  unity 
of  the  school  system  of  the  United  States.  The 
English  effort  to  achieve  something  of  the  same 
kind  has  been  most  earnest  and  protracted.  Eng- 
land has,  as  have  the  other  countries  of  Europe, 
common  schools  for  the  ordinary  people  and  sepa- 
rate schools  for  the  aristocracy.  The  common 
schools  of  England  began  as  missionary  enter- 
prises and  are  now  characterized  by  the  fact  that 
they  are  free.  They  are  socially  of  a  lower  grade 

63 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

than  the  schools  of  the  aristocracy  which  are 
known  as  "secondary  schools."  Even  to-day  it 
is  not  permissible  for  one  who  is  well-to-do  to 
send  one's  children  to  the  common  school.  The 
secondary  schools  are  tuition  schools  with  an 
extensive  curriculum  and  they  train  the  favored 
children  of  the  better  families  from  their  early 
years.  This  system  could  not  continue  as  a  hard- 
and-fast  system  of  separation  in  democratic  Eng- 
land. The  plan  was  accordingly  devised  of  allow- 
ing bright  children  to  transfer  from  the  limited 
common  school  into  the  unlimited  secondary 
school,  provided  they  show  themselves  able  to 
pass  an  examination.  Furthermore,  there  are 
many  "bursaries,"  as  they  are  called,  or  "scholar- 
ships" as  we  should  call  them,  which  are  awarded 
to  those  who  do  well  in  these  examinations.  A 
bright  child  thus  has  the  secondary-school  course 
made  free  and  accessible  through  examination. 

The  term  "educational  ladder"  was  coined  by 
Matthew  Arnold,  when  he  was  an  inspector 
under  the  English  Board  of  Education,  to  de- 
scribe this  plan  of  allowing  a  child  from  the  com- 
mon school  to  cross  over  into  the  higher  schools. 
64 


AN  UNDIVIDED  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM 

That  the  opportunity  is  highly  appreciated  is 
attested  by  many  facts.  In  1902  the  number  of 
secondary  schools  was  greatly  increased.  Muni- 
cipal institutions  of  secondary  grade  are  now 
common,  offering  large  and  varied  opportunities 
of  a  type  desired  by  the  boys  and  girls  of  the 
common  families;  and  a  great  many  children  are 
passing  over  from  the  common  school  into  these 
democratic  secondary  institutions.  There  is  only 
one  dif&culty.  The  crossing  is  not  as  easy  as  the 
common  people  desire.  One  of  the  labor  leaders 
put  the  matter  vigorously  by  saying,  "We  want 
not  merely  an  educational  ladder;  we  want  what 
they  have  in  America,  an  educational  stairway." 
The  English  system  of  transfer  by  examination 
is  often  objected  to  by  the  teachers  in  the  sec- 
ondary schools.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  a 
boy  from  the  common  school  transfers  when  he 
is  twelve  years  old.  On  arriving  at  the  secondary 
school,  he  finds  that  boys  of  his  age  who  began  in 
their  earlier  years  in  the  secondary  school  have 
had  certain  courses  which  were  not  supplied  in 
the  common  school.  For  example,  the  common- 
school  boy  has  had  no  French  or  Latin  while 
6S 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

the  secondary-school  boys  have  been  studying 
these  subjects  several  years.  The  conservative 
teachers  in  the  secondary  schools  are  outspoken 
in  their  criticism  of  the  transfer  system  because 
of  the  difficulty  of  assimilating  the  new  pupils. 

The  digression  will  help  us  to  appreciate  the 
imique  character  of  our  unified  school  system. 
The  American  academy  did  not  begin  as  a  paral- 
lel and  separate  secondary  school.  It  was  an 
outgrowth  of  the  lower  school. 

We  cannot  fail  to  recognize  the  fact  that  there 
IS  something  of  a  break  between  our  elementary 
schools  and  our  high  schools  in  spite  of  the  prom- 
ise of  the  academy.  It  is  known  to  every  one 
who  has  passed  through  our  educational  system 
that  the  elementary  school  stops  and  the  high 
school  begins,  sometimes  with  a  noticeable  jolt 
to  the  student.  The  break  is  our  inheritance 
from  an  undemocratic  past.  It  represents  the 
degree  of  our  failure  to  assimilate  the  lower  and 
higher  schools  into  a  single  system. 

The  break  in  our  school  system  shows  itself  in 
externals  and  in  matters  of  internal  organization. 
The  high  school  is  usually  in  a  building  entirely 
66 


AN  UNDIVIDED  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM 

separate  from  the  grades.  Not  imcommonly 
there  are  different  people  in  charge.  Sometimes 
the  boards  of  education  of  the  two  schools  are 
different.  Commonly  the  principal  of  the  high 
school  is  a  man  who  has  no  connection  with  the 
lower  schools. 

In  the  treatment  of  students  the  high  school 
and  the  elementary  school  are  very  different. 
The  high  school  accords  the  individual  student 
great  liberty.  He  is  usually  allowed  to  move 
about  the  building  as  he  finds  necessary  for  all 
sorts  of  purposes,  such  as  visiting  the  library  or 
attending  classes  or  getting  his  luncheon.  The 
elementary-school  pupil  moves  about  only  as  a 
member  of  the  class  to  which  he  belongs  and  then 
under  strict  supervision  of  the  teacher. 

The  teaching  forces  of  the  two  schools  are 
likely  to  be  separate,  not  merely  in  their  duties, 
but  in  spirit  High-school  teachers  do  not  want 
to  attend  teachers'  conventions,  and  they  are 
often  proud  of  the  fact  that  they  know  nothing 
about  the  problems  of  elementary  education. 
The  high-school  teacher  is  a  specialist  and  he 
cannot  be  interested  in  general  school  matters. 
67 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

The  result  is  that  in  teaching  the  specialty  to 
which  he  is  devoted  the  high-school  teacher  does 
little  or  nothing  to  relate  his  work  to  that  of 
other  divisions  of  either  the  high  school  or  the 
system  in  general. 

More  fundamental,  however,  than  any  other 
cause  of  separation  between  the  high  school  and 
the  elementary  school  is  the  radical  change  in 
the  subject-matter  of  instruction  which  the  pu- 
pil experiences  in  passing  from  the  elementary 
school  to  the  high  school.  The  elementary  school, 
bound  by  its  traditions,  gi\ies  nothing  but  rudi- 
mentary, vernacular  instruction.  When  the  pu- 
pil arrives  in  the  high  school  he  is  rushed  with- 
out delay  into  a  wholly  different  intellectual 
atmosphere.  In  the  high-school  classes  the  work 
aims  to  be  advanced,  and  the  most  commonly 
emphasized  subject  is  foreign  language.  The 
student  finds  himself  required  to  begin  Latin 
with  a  teacher  who  very  often  knows  absolutely 
nothing  of  the  way  in  which  he  studied  English 
and  English  grammar.  He  begins  algebra  with  a 
teacher  who  sometimes  speaks  of  arithmetic  and 
the  ignorance  of  that  subject  exhibited  by  every 
68 


AN  UNDIVIDED  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM 

member  of  the  class.  The  student  may  wonder 
about  the  true  relation  between  arithmetic  and 
algebra  and  why  they  are  both  called  mathe- 
matics, but  he  will  have  little  or  no  time  to  in- 
dulge in  such  speculations.  He  is  dragged  rapidly 
through  chapter  after  chapter  of  this  new  and 
highly  abstract  subject,  often  wondering  what  it 
is  all  about  and  why  anybody  wants  him  to  study 
it.  Even  the  English  which  he  gets  in  high  school 
seems  to  bear  little  relation  to  the  long,  laborious 
studies  which  he  pursued  in  the  elementary 
classes  called  reading  and  grammar. 

Paragraphs  on  the  breach  between  the  elemen- 
tary school  and  the  high  school  can  hardly  be 
overwritten.  The  numerous  withdrawals  from 
school  during  the  first  year  of  the  high  school 
bear  eloquent  testimony  to  the  confusion  which 
many  a  boy  and  girl  experience  in  trying  to  take 
advantage  of  our  unitary,  continuous  education. 

It  is  difficult  to  assign  with  complete  justice 
the  blame  for  this  situation.  Certain  it  is  that 
in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
American  academy  had  gone  far  toward  realizing 
the  truly  democratic  ideal  of  a  continuous  school 
69 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

system.  It  is  equally  certain  that  the  Latin 
school  still  represented  the  tendency  toward  com- 
plete division  which  characterized  the  schools  of 
Europe.  Finally,  into  this  unsettled  situation 
came  the  German  Volksschule.  This  last  influ- 
ence powerfully  reenforced  the  tendency  toward 
separation  which  survived  in  the  organization 
of  the  Latin  school. 

Whatever  the  sources  of  the  difficulty,  the 
main  fact  is  that  separation  between  the  elemen- 
tary school  and  the  high  school  still  persists  and 
must  be  removed  before  wte  shall  have  a  truly 
democratic  system.  Our  present  problem  is  not 
to  spend  time  settling  a  matter  of  historical  dis- 
pute. Enough  for  us  to  see  that  there  are  to-day 
as  in  the  past  forces  making  for  and  against  the 
imion  of  our  upper  and  lower  schools.  Once  the 
problem  is  clear,  our  duty  is  equally  plain.  We 
must  carry  forward  the  program  of  the  American 
academy.  The  continuity  of  education  which 
that  school  represented  is  more  in  keeping  with 
our  democratic  institutions  than  the  exclusive- 
ness  of  the  Latin  school  or  the  narrow,  limiting 
influences  of  the  Volksschule. 


VI 

PRESSURE  WITHIN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL 

Every  period  doubtless  seems  to  those  who  live 
and  work  in  it  to  be  more  fruitful  of  reform  than 
any  preceding  time  in  the  world's  history.  Per- 
haps we  exaggerate  the  extent  and  importance 
of  the  school  reforms  of  the  last  twenty  years, 
but  they  seem  to  be  broad  in  scope  and  profound 
in  meaning  for  the  future.  Even  if  there  had  been 
no  war  with  its  accompanying  revival  of  national 
spirit  and  enthusiasm  for  democracy,  the  schools 
of  the  United  States  were  on  the  point  of  achiev- 
ing a  new  and  more  highly  unified  organization. 
With  the  influence  of  the  war  operating  to  accel- 
erate reform  and  to  sweep  away  every  vestige 
of  aristocratic  discrimination,  the  changes  of  the 
next  ten  years  may  be  expected  to  be  of  the  first 
order  of  importance. 

Let  us  consider  briefly  the  influences  which 
were  operating  before  the  war  to  reform  the 
schools  of  the  United  States.^  The  impressive 

71 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

fact  is  that  there  were  movements  toward  change 
in  every  branch  of  school  organization.  The 
elementary-school  teachers  were  conscious  that 
their  work  needed  to  be  carried  on  differently. 
Especially  were  they  anxious  to  eliminate  from 
the  rudimentary  courses  all  artificial  and  unpro- 
ductive sections,  and  at  the  same  time  they  were 
eager  to  bring  their  pupils  at  an  earlier  age  into 
contact  with  the  rich,  new  materials  which  mod- 
em science  has  contributed  as  guides  to  indus- 
try and  life.  The  high-school  teachers  no  less  than 
the  elementary-school  teachers  were  seeing  the 
necessity  of  reform  because  the  cramped  space 
of  four  years  allotted  to  secondary  education  can 
no  longer  contain  the  accimiulating  courses  which 
the  high  school  has  to  offer.  More  time  and  more 
range  of  opportunity  are  consequently  eagerly 
sought  by  the  high  school.  Finally,  school  ad- 
ministrators were  becoming  aware  of  the  ne- 
cessity of  better  organization.  Scientific  tests  of 
school  work  were  exhibiting  weaknesses  in  the 
present  arrangement  which  cannot  be  tolerated 
when  brought  explicitly  to  the  surface.  The 
old-fashioned  complacence  with  schools  had 
72 


PRESSURE  IN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL 

given  place  to  an  internal  restlessness  which 
called  loudly  for  reform. 

It  is  not  necessary  in  a  general  discussion  of 
this  type  to  expatiate  on  the  growing  ambition  of 
the  elementary  school  to  give  a  richer  course  of 
study.  Nor  will  it  be  appropriate  to  review  the 
many  impressive  results  of  tests.  The  less  ob- 
vious and  less  commonly  understood  influence  of 
the  pressure  within  the  high  school  for  more 
time  in  which  to  do  its  work  may  be  selected 
for  brief  discussion  because  this  pressure  has 
operated  to  determine  in  no  small  measure  the 
form  in  which  recent  reorganization  has  been 
attempted. 

The  high  school  of  1870  had  no  serious  diffi- 
culty in  planning  the  program  of  the  individual 
student.  There  were  courses  in  higher  mathe- 
matics which  had  long  been  traditional;  there 
were  courses  in  Latin  and  Greek  which  carried 
forward  the  classical  traditions,  and,  finally, 
there  were  a  few  scattered  subjects  included  in 
the  curriculum  as  concessions  to  the  practical 
interests  of  the  students  and  the  half-recognized 
probability  that  the  ordinary  student  would 
73 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

have  very  little  use  for  the  "solid"  courses  above 
mentioned. 

From  1870  on,  the  world  moved  forward  at  a 
bewilderingly  rapid  rate.  New  sciences  grew  up 
overnight.  The  doctrine  of  biological  evolution, 
once  started  on  its  career  of  intellectual  conquest, 
was  making  animal  and  human  Ufe  a  matter  of 
common  interest  and  a  subject  of  scientific  treat- 
ment. Industry  was  evolving  new  applications 
of  physics  and  chemistry  at  such  a  rapid  rate  that 
the  school  could  not  keep  up  with  the  pace.  As  a 
result,  the  demand  for  science  began  to  be  heard 
from  students  and  patrons. 

Stimulated  by  the  new  materials  which  soon 
crystallized  into  scientific  ctu:ricula,  the  teachers 
of  hterary  subjects  found  that  there  were  new 
possibiUties  in  their  fields.  The  modem  languages 
were  offered  as  the  present-day  counterparts  of 
the  classics.  To  be  sure,  there  was  a  clear  state- 
ment again  and  again  of  the  belief  that  the  mod- 
em languages  were  inferior  as  subjects  of  instmc- 
tion  and  as  means  of  intellectual  enlightenment. 
But  in  spite  of  this,  they  came  in  an  increasing 
volume. 

74 


PRESSURE  IN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL 

With  the  emphasis  on  current  material  came 
the  phenomenal  growth  of  English  courses.  No 
one  could  object  to  the  study  of  the  vernacular. 
Led  by  Harvard's  example,  the  colleges,  the  sci- 
ence teachers,  and  the  classicists  all  agreed  that 
English  must  have  a  place  in  the  high  school. 
The  result  was  English  and  more  English.  No  one 
can  deny  that  English  is  now  in.  The  problem 
seems  to  be  these  days  to  find  room  in  the  tent 
for  the  other  members  of  the  caravan. 

Somewhat  late  in  the  scramble  for  place  came 
the  historians.  They  were  represented  at  first 
by  the  teachers  of  Greek  and  Roman  history 
who  had  sheltered  themselves  under  the  roof  of 
the  classical  temple.  But  that  seemed  in  later 
days  to  be  an  unsafe  shrine,  and  the  historians 
began  to  build  their  own  more  modem  edifice. 
To  drop  the  figure  and  speak  in  plain  modem 
terms,  the  historians  began  to  ask  for  a  place  in 
the  Sim,  but  they  found  the  places  crowded. 

When  we  come  down  to  the  period  of  the 
Comimttee  of  Ten,  or  any  later  date  that  one 
may  choose,  we  find  that  there  is  not  enough 
room  in  the  high-school  program  for  those  who 

75 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

are  there.  Yet  the  company  increases.  Forging 
and  woodwork,  sewing  and  cooking,  commercial 
subjects  and  an  endless  line  of  technical  courses 
begin  to  appear.  The  places  which  were  crowded 
in  1900  began  to  be  at  a  higher  premium  in  1910. 

The  crowding  of  the  high-school  curriculum 
was  temporarily  relieved  by  the  adoption  of  the 
elective  system.  Foreign  observers  who  saw 
American  schools  launching  on  the  elective  plan 
shook  their  heads  and  commented  on  the  in- 
ability of  immature  students  to  choose  for  them- 
selves. It  appeared  in  practical  experience  that 
pupils  were  often  confused,  while  parents  some- 
times favored  the  plan  and  sometimes  objected 
to  it.  But  the  plan  spread  until  it  has  become 
the  established  practice  of  our  high  schools. 
The  elective  system  reUeved  the  congestion  for 
a  time  and  students  distributed  themselves 
throughout  the  courses,  but  the  various  sub- 
jects were  so  attractive  that  even  the  elective 
system  failed  to  relieve  the  congestion  perma- 
nently. 

The  next  measure  which  was  adopted  grew  up 
gradually  as  a  practice  rather  than  as  a  con- 
76 


PRESSURE  IN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL 

scious  plan.  It  was  the  practice  of  giving  stu- 
dents more  subjects.  Instead  of  administering 
three  or  four  courses  as  in  the  older  high  schools, 
the  new  schools  let  pupils  into  four,  then  five, 
and  finally  six.  To  be  sure,  six  subjects  a  day 
seem  to  be  a  httle  distracting  when  one  faces 
the  number  in  cold  blood.  But  the  demands  of 
modem  life  are  strenuous.  It  is  quite  certain, 
too,  that  the  teacher  who  teaches  one  of  six  sub- 
jects to  a  student  each  day  will  have  to  be  con- 
tent with  a  relatively  small  fraction  of  the  stu- 
dent's time  and  energy.  But  there  are  a  great 
many  teachers  and  they  must  have  students,  so 
the  students  will  have  to  be  divided  among 
them. 

This  is  not  by  any  means  the  whole  story.  The 
science  teachers  met  after  the  sciences  had  been 
admitted  into  the  brotherhood  of  high-school 
courses  and  took  action  stating  that  no  student 
is  scientific  unless  he  has  at  least  four  consecu- 
tive years  of  science.  The  history  teachers  took 
the  same  action  with  regard  to  history.  Latin 
was  there  ahead  of  the  rest,  but  in  order  to  make 
its  position  perfectly  clear  issued  the  statement 

77 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

that  no  one  can  get  real  good  out  of  Latin  if  he 
takes  less  than  four  years.  English  and  German 
and  French  and  Spanish  followed  suit.  The  re- 
sult of  all  this  passing  of  resolutions  is  an  impres- 
sion on  the  lay  mind  that  it  is  quite  hopeless  for 
any  American  boy  or  girl  to  expect  to  get  an 
education  in  a  high  school. 

The  layman's  view  is  of  some  importance, 
but  still  more  important  is  the  fact  that  high- 
school  teachers  finally  became  aware  that  they 
had  to  have  more  time.  Where  could  they  get 
it? 

There  is  a  long  story  growing  out  of  this  com- 
petition of  departments.  It  reaches  into  the  col- 
lege at  one  end  of  the  high-school  course  and 
into  the  elementary  school  at  the  other.  The 
fact  is  that  what  we  have  tried  to  work  out  as  a 
high-school  curriculum  in  American  schools  can- 
not be  contained  in  four  years. 

As  a  practical  and  preliminary  adjustment  the 
colleges  took  up  part  of  the  task  or,  rather,  con- 
tinued to  do  part  of  the  work  of  secondary  in- 
struction. There  never  has  been  a  time  when 
American  colleges  have  not  done  a  great  deal  of 
78 


PRESSURE  IN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL 

secondary  work.  In  recent  years  this  has  been 
the  more  obvious  because  much  of  the  work  of 
freshman  and  sophomore  years  has  been  car- 
ried on  without  high-school  prerequisites.  It 
has  long  been  possible  in  every  American  col- 
lege for  the  student  to  elect  first-year  French 
and  first-year  German.  He  can  also  begin  his- 
tory and  science.  The  question  has  been  asked: 
Why  not  let  a  college  freshman  begin  Latin?  If 
he  wants  Greek  these  days,  he  usually  has  to 
postpone  the  subject  to  college  and  often  to 
the  divinity  school.  These  questions  and  condi- 
tions grow  out  of  the  fact  that  the  present  high 
school  cannot  do  all  that  is  required  to  complete 
a  secondary  education. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  high-school  course, 
the  seventh  and  eighth  grades  are  beginning  to 
do  some  of  the  work  which  used  to  be  assigned 
to  the  ninth  and  tenth  grades.  Many  an  eighth- 
grader  these  days  knows  the  Mercliant  of  Venice 
better  than  did  the  high-school  senior  of  1890. 
Science  has  made  a  lame  and  halting  attempt 
to  enter  the  elementary  school,  and  enough  prog- 
ress has  been  made  so  that  the  principle  is  now 

79 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

well  established  that  science  of  some  kind  be- 
longs in  the  lower  school. 

While  the  internal  pressure  in  the  high  school 
is  thus  working  toward  a  breaking-down  of  the 
high-school  bounds,  the  science  of  education  is 
cooperating  powerfully  to  unsettle  the  rigid 
organization  of  the  high  school.  Studies  of  the 
mental  achievements  of  high-school  students 
and  of  their  mental  characteristics  make  it  clear 
that  the  high-school  age  begins  before  fourteen. 
The  striking  facts  of  growth  which  mark  the 
beginning  of  adolescence  are^o  easily  open  to 
observation  and  record  that  one  of  the  first  great 
studies  of  the  science  of  education  dealt  with 
this  period.  The  effect  of  this  study  of  adoles- 
cence was  to  raise  many  questions  of  school 
organization  which  will  not  be  put  aside  until 
they  are  answered  by  a  genuine  reorganization 
of  the  high  school. 

It  is  not  the  function  of  this  volume  to  deal 
with  the  problems  of  high-school  reorganization 
or  to  follow  further  the  implications  of  the  com- 
ments which  have  been  made  on  the  college 
course.  It  is  important  for  the  present  discus- 
80 


PRESSURE  IN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL 

sion,  however,  that  we  note  the  fact  that  rest- 
lessness within  the  high  school  dictated  the  form 
in  which  changes  are  to-day  being  made  in  the 
upper  years  of  the  elementary  school. 

The  institution  organized  to  bridge  over  the 
gap  between  elementary  school  and  high  school 
has  taken  on  a  name  which  shows  that  the  high 
school  is  expanding.  The  new  institution  is 
called  a  "junior  high  school."  In  this  new  school 
the  forms  of  organization  are  patterned  after 
those  of  the  high  school.  Pupils  are  given  re- 
sponsibilities similar  to  those  assigned  to  high- 
school  pupils.  The  courses  are  enriched  and 
brought  over  from  high-school  fields. 

Some  antagonism  has  been  aroused  by  the 
name.  Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  use  a  less 
specific  term  which  elementarv-school  teachers 
would  regard  as  appropriate  to  their  work.  His- 
torically, there  will  always  be  justification  for  a 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  expansion  of 
the  high  school  was  a  determining  factor  in  the 
reorganization  of  our  school  system. 

Whatever  the  antagonism  to  the  name  "jun- 
ior high  school,"  the  institution  is  here  as  one 
8i 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

of  the  most  promising  solutions  of  the  problem 
of  democratizing  our  school  system.  We  must 
try  to  understand  it  and  make  use  of  it  for  the 
purpose  for  which  it  originated,  namely,  to  cure 
the  breach  between  elementary  schools  and  high 
schools. 


VII 

WHAT  IS  A  JUNIOR  HIGH  SCHOOL? 

If  one  visits  ten  junior  high  schools  and  tries  to 
generalize  on  what  one  has  seen,  it  will  be  found 
difficult  to  make  any  statements  which  apply 
equally  to  all  of  these  institutions. 

All  of  them  are,  indeed,  recent  in  their  origin. 
The  movement  is  about  a  decade  old.  It  has 
spread  rapidly  in  recent  years,  so  that  it  is  prob- 
able that  out  of  ten  samples  five  will  be  not 
more  than  two  or  three  years  old. 

Most  junior  high  schools  have  adopted  a  de- 
partmentalized form  of  class  organization.  This 
type  of  organization  in  which  teachers  specialize 
in  one  subject,  or  in  a  very  limited  group  of  sub- 
jects, while  the  pupils  pass  during  the  day  from 
teacher  to  teacher  for  the  full  series  of  their 
studies  was  by  no  means  imcommon  in  elemen- 
tary grades  before  the  jmiior  high  school  ap- 
peared. Departmentalization  is,  however,  so 
characteristic  of  all  ordinary  high-school  courses 

83 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

that  the  application  of  the  name  "junior  high 
school"  to  any  seventh  or  eighth  grade  having 
this  organization  is  very  natural. 

Beyond  the  common  characteristics  of  ex- 
treme youth  and  departmentalization  there  are 
likely  to  be  few  points  of  complete  agreement 
among  junior  high  schools.  Some  of  these  in- 
stitutions include  the  seventh,  eighth,  and  ninth 
grades.  Some  include  two  and  some  only  one  of 
these  grades. 

Sometimes  the  junior  high  school  is  housed 
with  the  elementary  school.  'Sometimes,  though 
less  frequently,  it  has  a  building  of  its  own,  and 
sometimes  it  is  in  the  high-school  building. 

In  teaching  staff,  the  junior  high  school  usu- 
ally aims  to  have  more  highly  trained  teachers 
than  do  the  seventh  and  eighth  grades.  But 
this  theory  is  often  overlooked  in  practical  or- 
ganization and  teachers  from  the  grades  are  in 
charge  as  they  would  be  if  there  were  no  junior 
high  school.  Indeed,  in  some  cases  the  junior 
high  school  has  furnished  the  excuse  for  putting 
teachers  of  inferior  academic  training  in  charge 
of  the  ninth  grade. 

84 


WHAT  IS  A  JUNIOR  HIGH  SCHOOL? 

Whatever  diversities  appear  in  other  mat- 
ters, they  are  completely  ecHpsed  by  the  varia- 
tions in  courses  of  study.  In  one  type  of  junior 
high  school  there  is  no  departure  whatsoever 
from  the  courses  of  study  which  preceded  the 
re-christening.  At  the  other  extreme  is  the  jun- 
ior high  school  which  carried  down  into  the 
seventh  grade  high-school  algebra  and  high- 
school  Latin.  In  one  case  observed  by  the  writer 
this  was  attempted  without  any  modification  of 
the  courses  to  adapt  them  to  the  seventh  grade. 
Even  the  textbooks  were  those  used  in  high- 
school  classes. 

A  common  form  of  reorganization  of  the  cur- 
riculum which  some  writers  have  taken  as 
characteristic  of  the  movement  is  found  in 
junior  high  schools  which  di£Fer  from  elemen- 
tary schools  only  in  the  fact  that  they  teach  a 
great  deal  of  handwork.  This  handwork  in  some 
institutions  takes  the  form  of  industrial  courses. 

It  should  be  remarked  in  passing  that  it  is 

a  fundamental   mistake  to  identify  industrial 

classes  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  grades  with  the 

junior-high-school  movement  in  general.    It  is 

85 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

true  that  this  is  the  form  in  which  the  junior 
high  school  appears  in  some  systems,  but  it  is 
not  the  only  form,  nor  is  it  the  characteristic 
form. 

Between  the  extreme  forms  of  curriculum 
which  have  been  mentioned  there  is  every  vari- 
ety of  intermediate  form.  There  is  the  school 
which  offers  as  an  extra  an  opportunity  for  the 
pupils  to  begin  a  foreign  language.  Back  of  this 
offering  is  the  assumption  that  the  child  is  going 
on  into  a  senior  high  school  and  will  be  carried 
over  more  readily  into  th6  new  high-school 
courses  through  this  preliminary  training. 

Sometimes  the  elective  foreign  language  is 
offered  not  as  an  extra  but  as  a  substitute  for 
English  grammar,  it  being  held  that  English 
grammar  will  be  best  taught  through  the  medium 
of  the  new  grammatical  structures  to  which  the 
child  will  be  introduced  in  this  elective  study. 

Another  intermediate  form  of  reorganization 
of  the  curriculum  is  exhibited  in  some  institu- 
tions which  offer,  not  a  full  technical  curricu- 
lum, but  elective  courses  in  a  few  of  the  manual 
arts.  In  earlier  times  this  would  have  been  de- 
86 


WHAT  IS  A  JUNIOR  HIGH  SCHOOL? 

scribed  as  an  extension  of  the  elementary  curric- 
ulum, not  as  a  serious  change  in  the  spirit  of  the 
school.  But  the  name  "junior  high  school" 
has  become  popular,  and  many  school  systems 
have  felt  that  they  must  have  the  name  even 
on  the  slight  justification  of  a  new  course  in 
woodworking  or  cooking. 

Science  has  in  some  cases  been  the  new  ele- 
ment which  has  differentiated  the  junior  high 
school  from  its  predecessor.  Again,  it  has  been 
conomercial  courses,  or  some  very  elementary 
form  of  training  for  ofl&ce  work  such  as  business 
penmanship  or  bookkeeping. 

The  mathematics  courses  of  the  junior  high 
school  differ  most  commonly  from  the  conven- 
tional seventh-  and  eighth-grade  arithmetic  in 
the  addition  of  some  of  the  methods  of  rapid 
calculation  common  to  so-called  "business  arith- 
metic." 

Such  in  brief  summary  is  the  variety  which 
one  is  likely  to  find  when  one  visits  various 
junior  high  schools.  Some  observers  have  come 
back  from  a  tour  of  this  kind  lull  of  cynicism  and 
pessimism  about  the  movement.   It  is  a  sham 

87 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

imitation,  they  tell  us,  an  effort  to  do  in  a  cheap 
way  in  the  upper  elementary  grades  what  the 
high  school  should  be  left  to  do. 

To  one  who  has  sympathy  with  the  positions 
which  have  been  developed  in  earlier  chapters  of 
this  volume  the  apparent  chaos  of  the  junior- 
high-school  movement  will  be  neither  a  sur- 
prise nor  a  source  of  discouragement.  The 
junior  high  school  has  grown  up  in  democratic 
America  as  the  last  chapter  in  the  history  of  the 
struggle  against  the  medieval  dual  system.  The 
junior  high  school  is  the  de^rice  which  modern 
society  has  developed  in  its  effort  to  throw  off 
the  limitations  of  an  artificial  eight-year,  rudi- 
mentary, vernacular  school.  The  junior  high 
school  is  a  device  to  heal  the  breach  between 
the  elementary  school  and  the  high  school.  Of 
course,  the  junior  high  school  must  be  in  its 
early  days  full  of  crudities  and  variations.  There 
will  be  those  who  misuse  the  name  and  fail  to 
express  the  spirit  of  the  movement.  But  if  the 
choice  between  continuation  of  the  old  system 
and  experimentation  mixed  with  some  crudities 
is  presented  to  an  intelligent  society,  there  can 
88 


WHAT  IS  A  JUNIOR  HIGH  SCHOOL? 

be  very  little  doubt  what  the  decision  will  be. 
What  is  needed  is  not  a  suppression  of  the  move- 
ment but  a  wise  guidance  of  its  progress. 

Defense  of  the  junior  high  school  need  not 
delay  us  long  in  the  light  of  what  has  been  said 
in  earUer  chapters.  It  is  important,  however, 
that  an  appeal  be  made  to  principals  of  ele- 
mentary schools,  teachers  of  seventh  and  eighth 
grades  and  school  superintendents,  that  they 
think  of  the  movement  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  school  system  as  a  whole  and  recognize 
it,  not  merely  as  an  expansion  downward  of  the 
high  school,  but  also  and  chiefly  as  a  necessary 
evolution  of  the  elementary  school. 

The  elementary  school  no  less  than  the  high 
school  has  been  forced  by  its  own  internal  de- 
velopment to  change  its  content  of  instruction 
and  its  methods.  The  extension  of  the  school 
year,  to  which  reference  was  made  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  of  necessity  compelled  the  expansion 
of  the  course  of  study.  The  better  equipment 
of  schools  has  tended  in  the  same  direction.  So 
has  the  improved  training  of  teachers. 

The  better-trained  teachers  have  observed 
89 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

that  pupils  of  twelve  years  of  age  can  be  given 
responsibilities  of  a  type  impossible  in  the  lower 
grades.  As  a  result  there  is  a  very  different  so- 
cial atmosphere  in  the  upper  grades  than  there 
used  to  be  when  discipline  was  of  an  arbitrary 
type.  Formerly,  the  assumption  was  that  chil- 
dren must  be  suppressed;  now,  that  they  must 
be  drawn  out.  Especially  is  it  true  of  children 
in  the  upper  grades  of  the  elementary  school 
that  their  interests  should  be  satisfied  and  their 
natural  ambitions  to  become  a  part  of  adult 
society  fostered.  This  change' in  social  spirit  is 
sure  to  be  followed  by  a  change  in  intellectual 
atmosphere. 

Principals  of  elementary  schools  are  usually 
reluctant  to  lose  their  seventh  and  eighth 
grades  because  they  consider  them  helpful  in 
maintaining  the  discipline  and  intellectual  at- 
mosphere of  the  school.  The  plea  is  accordingly 
made  that  the  changes  in  the  course  of  study  be 
made  without  disturbing  the  organization  of  the 
grades. 

In  answer  to  this  plea  it  should  be  pointed  out 
so  emphatically  that  there  will  be  no  possibility 
90 


WHAT  IS  A  JUNIOR  HIGH  SCHOOL? 

of  the  conclusion  being  forgotten  that  the  jiinior- 
high-school  movement  is  based  on  exactly  the 
considerations  which  lead  the  elementary-school 
principal  to  want  to  retain  his  upper  grades.  It 
is  because  seventh-  and  eighth-grade  pupils  are 
able  to  take  responsibilities  and  because  they  are 
eager  to  know  more  of  the  world,  that  larger 
opportunities  and  opportimities  of  a  higher  type 
should  be  offered  to  them. 

The  argument  must,  however,  be  pushed  much 
further.  The  enrichment  of  the  upper  grades  will 
serve  society  most  effectively  if  it  is  recognized 
that  along  with  enrichment  of  the  program  there 
must  be  recognition  of  individual  differences  in 
pupils.  At  twelve  years  of  age  and  after,  the  child 
begins  to  look  forward  to  the  demands  of  his 
adult  life.  It  is  not  necessary  to  plunge  him  at 
once  into  a  trade  when  he  is  twelve,  but  it  is 
important  that  his  indiWdual  tastes  and  capaci- 
ties begin  to  be  given  play.  This  means  flexibil- 
ity in  the  school  organization.  This  means  in 
turn  the  gathering  together  of  enough  eighth 
grades  and  seventh  grades  to  justify  variety  and 
richness  in  the  course.    If  a  school  system  is 

91 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

large  enough  to  bring  into  one  building  one 
hundred  and  twenty  eighth-graders,  the  variety 
of  work  which  can  be  offered  is  obviously  greater 
than  the  variety  which  can  be  offered  to  six  sep- 
arate grades  of  twenty  each  scattered  about  in 
the  elementary  schools  of  the  city. 

The  elementary-school  principal  who  objects 
to  losing  his  eighth  grade  can  be  encouraged  to 
derive  no  small  consolation  from  the  wholly  un- 
solved problem  to  be  worked  out  by  some  intel- 
ligent school  man  in  discovering  the  kind  of 
material  of  instruction  most  appropriate  to  the 
intermediate  grades.  Problems  of  the  sixth,  fifth, 
and  fourth  grades  have  been  too  much  neglected 
because  principals  have  been  absorbed  in  the 
primary  grades  and  higher  grades. 

The  appeal  which  the  junior  high  school  should 
make  to  those  in  charge  of  the  upper  grades  and 
those  who  are  to  take  over  these  grades  in  the 
new  organization  is  no  mere  personal  appeal. 
Up  to  this  time  the  upper  grades  have  been 
handicapped  by  the  traditions  of  the  borrowing 
of  1840.  These  traditions  must  be  thrown  off 
and  in  their  place  must  come  a  course  of  study 
92 


WHAT  IS  A  JUNIOR  HIGH  SCHOOL? 

worked  out  experimentally  and  checked  by  sci- 
entific tests.  Let  all  who  have  launched  this 
movement  in  any  one  of  its  manifold  forms  turn 
now  to  a  careful  impersonal  evaluation  of  their 
achievements.  Is  Latin  successful?  Is  manual 
training  successful?  What  characteristics  of 
junior-high-school  pupils  need  to  be  recognized 
in  constructing  the  course  of  study?  We  have 
thrown  away  Old- World  traditions;  do  not  let 
us  substitute  for  the  older  organization  mere 
individual  guesses  and  controversies  about 
names.  Let  us  go  about  this  new  and  demo- 
cratic task  in  a  thoroughly  scientific  way. 

There  can  hardly  be  any  doubt  that  the  fol- 
lowing general  principles  will  guide  the  further 
evolution  of  our  school  system:  — 

The  day  is  past  when  the  eight-year  curricu- 
lum can  continue  to  be  made  up  of  vernacular, 
rudimentary  courses. 

The  elementary  curriculum  is  in  process  of 
enrichment,  and  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  en- 
larged it  must  be  freed  from  artificial  and  useless 
material  which  tradition  has  kept  in  the  school. 

Absolute  continuity  of  educational  opportu- 

93 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

nity  must  be  provided.  The  breaks  which  have 
been  brought  over  from  antiquated  systems  of 
education  must  be  closed  up. 

The  adoption  of  these  principles  assures  far- 
reaching  reforms.  There  need  be  no  pessimism 
if  the  reforms  follow  various  lines  in  different 
places  provided  we  keep  the  situation  suflSciently 
flexible  to  permit  constant  readjustment  to  meet 
ever-growing  needs,  and  provided  we  select  by 
carefully  directed  scientific  tests  the  sound  re- 
sults of  our  experimentation  and  make  these  the 
foundations  of  all  future  organization. 


VIII 

INDIVIDUAL  DIFFERENCES  AND  ECONOMY 

Two  urgent  considerations  have  come  vividly  to 
attention  in  recent  years,  both  pushing  us  toward 
the  type  of  reorganization  of  schools  found  in  the 
junior  high  school.  The  first  of  these  is  the  scien- 
tific principle  of  individual  differences;  the  sec- 
ond is  the  practical  demand  for  economy. 

All  the  recent  studies  of  school  children  re- 
veal the  existence  of  mental  and  physical  dif- 
ferences so  great  that  they  must  be  taken  into 
account  in  arranging  any  educational  program. 
For  example,  pupils  in  the  second  grade  show 
striking  differences  in  their  abiUty  to  read.  One 
reads  at  a  rate  of  eight  words  a  minute  while  an- 
other reads  at  the  rate  of  more  than  a  hundred 
words  in  the  same  period.  The  degree  of  compre- 
hension differs  in  even  wider  ranges,  reaching 
from  zero  to  ninety  per  cent  for  material  of  mod- 
erate difficulty.  In  arithmetic  differences  appear 
in  the  early  grades  not  only  in  degree  but  in  kind. 

95 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

One  child  multiplies  well  but  does  not  add  well. 
Another  shows  just  the  reverse.  Like  facts  turn 
up  in  every  field  of  study. 

The  individual  differences  which  appear  in  the 
early  grades  accumulate  as  the  pupils  pass 
through  year  after  year.  It  makes  no  difference 
how  rigidly  the  courses  are  prescribed;  there  will 
be  individual  picking  and  choosing  from  the  in- 
tellectual opportunities  offered  until  finally  in- 
dividual differences  begin  to  make  themselves 
felt  as  matters  of  importance  which  cannot  be 
ignored. 

There  was  a  time  when  it  would  have  been 
said  that  these  differences  must  be  overcome. 
That  was  the  period  when  the  concept  of  equal- 
ity was  interpreted  as  involving  little  more  than 
the  idea  of  uniformity.  Because  men  and  chil- 
dren are  equal  it  was  believed  that  they  must  be 
treated  exactly  alike.  There  is  much  in  our  school 
program  to-day  that  seems  to  be  based  on  the 
philosophy  of  uniformity. 

In  the  broader  developments  of  modem  social 
theory  outside  of  the  school  the  principle  of 
individual  differences  is  being  more  and  more 
96 


INDIVIDUAL  DIFFERENCES 

widely  recognized.  Industrial  society  is  made  up 
of  specialists.  Each  specialist  is  dependent  on 
those  about  him,  but  finds  his  personal  task  con- 
genial because  he  recognizes  the  dependence  as 
mutual. 

This  broad  social  principle  is  of  cardinal  im- 
portance in  school  organization.  Sooner  or  later 
specialization  by  the  pupil  must  be  recognized 
as  legitimate  in  the  regular  work  of  the  school. 

The  junior  high  school  comes  at  a  period  in  the 
child's  development  when  individual  differences 
are  becoming  sufficiently  pronounced  to  demand 
attention.  The  primary  child,  meeting  all  the 
intellectual  experiences  to  which  the  school  intro- 
duces him,  is  submerged  by  the  overwhelming 
body  of  new  opportunities.  There  are  individual 
differences  in  the  primary  grades,  but  they  re- 
quire for  the  most  part  no  separate  organizations 
because  the  general  work  of  the  primary  grades 
is  broad  enough  for  all.  The  children  of  the 
fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  grades  need  more  indi- 
vidual attention  and  in  the  progressive  schools 
are  receiving  it.  Here,  however,  as  in  the  lower 
grades,  the  general  organization  offers  variety 

97 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

enough  to  include  the  different  tastes  and  capaci- 
ties without  being  disrupted.  It  is  only  in  abnor- 
mal cases  that  organization  has  to  be  differenti- 
ated in  the  first  six  grades. 

By  the  time  the  pupils  reach  the  end  of  the 
sixth  year  they  are  so  divergent  in  their  attain- 
ments and  in  their  outlooks  that  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  school!  must  reflect  this  diversity. 
There  must  be  different  paths  for  the  pupils  to 
follow. 

This  statement  has  been  attacked  as  tmdemo- 
cratic  —  as  though  democracy  called  for  contin- 
uous uniformity  of  treatment  of  all  its  mem- 
bers. To  this  criticism  there  are  two  answers. 
First,  individual  differences  are  so  marked  in  the 
seventh  grade  that  if  they  are  not  provided  for 
inside  the  school,  pupils  will  leave  the  school. 
Indeed,  pupils  are  to-day  leaving  the  schools 
which  hold  to  the  old  formal  curriculum  just  be- 
cause they  find  in  industry  and  in  other  spheres 
concessions  to  their  individual  needs.  Whether 
we  like  it  or  not,  education  will  follow  diversified 
lines  from  the  sixth  grade  on.  How  much  more 
rational  it  will  be  to  adopt  a  general  form  of 
98 


INDIVIDUAL  DIFFERENCES 

school  organization  which  recognizes  individual 
differences  and  utilizes  them. 

The  second  answer  is  that  the  plea  for  instruc- 
tion in  the  common  elements  of  democracy  can 
be  justly  realized  only  when  common  elements 
are  treated  as  part  of  the  program,  not  as  the 
whole  program.  There  should  be  common  ele- 
ments in  the  programs  of  different  pupils,  but 
there  should  also  be  elective  opportunities.  Mod- 
em society  needs  many  kinds  of  workers.  Intel- 
ligent direction  of  workers  into  different  fields  is 
a  social  necessity.  The  seventh  grade  is  the  time 
when  the  broader  views  of  life  begin  to  open  up 
before  the  child.  It  is  time  that  these  views  be 
given  all  the  breadth  that  training  can  contribute. 

Even  while  the  two  answers  just  offered  to  the 
plea  for  imiformity  are  partially  accepted  it  is 
sometimes  urged  that  the  period  of  differentia- 
tion of  education  be  postponed.  It  is  said  that 
the  high  school  is  the  period  for  such  differ- 
entiation. To  such  demands  for  postponement 
the  answer  of  experience  must  be  made.  The 
fact  is  that  the  great  majority  of  pupils  do  not 
postpone  the  beginnings  of  specialization  of  in- 

99 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

terests  to  the  high-school  period.  They  some- 
times drift  blindly  because  we  try  to  prevent 
them  from  seeing  whither  they  are  going.  Their 
natures  are  different.  Their  attainments  are 
different.  Their  ambitions  are  different.  They 
need  to  see  the  world  in  a  broad  way  so  that  they 
may  take  paths  that  are  different.  Our  educa- 
tional system  must  recognize  these  facts. 

Reverting  to  our  historical  survey,  it  is  in 
point  to  call  attention  once  more  to  the  fact  that 
the  Volksschide  which  led  us  to  set  up  an  undiffer- 
entiated eight-year  elementary  school  was  fixed 
in  its  ways  because  it  was  an  institution  designed 
to  produce  uniformity  of  a  lower  grade.  There 
was  and  is  to-day  in  the  German  system  differen- 
tiation of  a  very  marked  type,  and  it  comes  long 
before  the  end  of  the  eighth  school  year.  From 
the  day  school  begins  the  common  boy  is  marked 
off  from  the  boy  going  into  the  higher  walks  of 
life.  Our  American  system  repudiates  the  social 
doctrine  which  separates  the  common  people 
from  an  hereditary  aristocracy.  Because  we  want 
American  pupils  to  have  more  of  a  common  view 
of  life  than  the  German  schools  as  a  whole  sup- 

lOO 


INDIVIDUAL  DIFFERENCES 

ply,  is  there  any  reason  why  we  should  be  bound 
by  the  limiting  traditions  which  keep  all  the  com- 
mon people  of  the  German  eight-year  school 
huddled  together  in  a  rigid,  meager  course? 

The  junior  high  school  comes  with  its  differ- 
entiated opportunities.  It  offers  to  pupils  the 
institutional  recognition  of  their  individual  differ- 
ences. Its  courses  of  study  contain  some  common 
elements  which  will  make  for  a  uniform  view  of 
democratic  responsibilities.  At  the  same  time 
the  courses  open  to  one  pupil  one  path;  to  an- 
other, another  path. 

Another  great  virtue  of  the  junior  high  school 
is  that  it  puts  a  stop  to  the  waste  of  time  and 
energy  which  has  resulted  from  the  inadequate 
organization  of  our  schools.  Waste  has  come 
from  three  causes.  First,  pupils  have  been  held 
back  in  the  upper  grades  in  order  to  conform 
to  the  tradition  that  elementary  education  is 
vernacular  and  rudimentary.  Second,  pupils 
have  been  confused  because  of  the  great  change 
experienced  in  passing  from  elementary  classes 
to  high-school  classes.  Third,  many  pupils  have 
dropped  out  of  school  or  failed  to  work  with 

lOI 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

enthusiasm  because  the  subjects  offered  to  them 
were  artificial  and  unsuited  to  their  needs. 

The  wastes  of  our  educational  system  have 
been  accepted  with  complacence  year  after  year. 
In  the  first  place,  we  have  been  a  people  living 
in  a  rich  land  where  our  social  inefficiencies  have 
been  more  than  covered  up  by  our  material  re- 
sources. In  the  second  place,  we  have  been 
utterly  unscientific  and  uncritical  in  the  develop- 
ment of  our  institutions.  We  have  been  a  fron- 
tier people  absorbed  in  practical  adjustments, 
willing  to  put  up  with  mistakes,  even  serious 
mistakes,  if  only  individual  freedom  is  not  cut 
off  entirely. 

There  have  been  voices  warning  us  that  we 
cannot  afford  to  go  on  with  our  prodigal  waste. 
Twenty  or  more  years  ago  Eliot  called  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  our  pupils  are  behind  those 
trained  in  the  better  European  schools.  In  more 
recent  years  our  professional  schools  have  be- 
come disturbed  about  this  deficiency.  Our  mer- 
chants and  manufacturers,  made  aware  of  our 
deficiencies  by  the  competition  they  have  met 
in  the  world's  markets,  have  been  demanding 

I02 


INDIVIDUAL  DIFFERENCES 

the  substitution  of  vocational  training  for  waste- 
ful general  courses. 

The  demand  for  economy  has  become  acute 
in  many  school  systems,  often  expressing  itself 
in  crude  terms.  Taxpayers  have  said  that  they 
are  paying  too  high  a  price  for  an  inferior  grade 
of  education.  Inquiries  have  been  set  on  foot  to 
discover  whether  money  could  be  saved  or  else 
the  schools  improved.  Experience  would  seem 
to  justify  the  statement  that  communities  and 
individuals  are  anxious  to  avoid  waste  but 
are  not  parsimonious  in  their  attitude  toward 
schools.  They  seem  to  demand  effective  expen- 
ditures and  not  curtailment  of  schools. 

The  junior  high  school  comes  as  one  answer 
to  this  demand  for  economy.  This  institution  is 
offered  as  a  better  school  not  as  a  cheaper  school. 
In  point  of  actual  cost  the  junior  high  school  is 
usually  more  expensive  than  the  seventh,  eighth, 
and  ninth  grades  because  it  offers  a  richer  course 
of  study  and  especially  because  it  keeps  children 
in  school.  But  in  its  economy  of  human  beings, 
the  junior  high  school  is  far  in  advance  of  the 
old-fashioned  elementary  school. 

103 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

Furthermore,  it  is  an  economical  school  in  that 
it  brings  its  pupils  to  advanced  stages  of  their 
training  at  an  earlier  date.  The  boy  who  is  going 
into  commerce  can  here  study  the  subjects  which 
will  fit  him  for  his  career  earlier  than  he  could  in 
any  other  organization  of  the  curriculum.  The  boy 
who  is  going  into  a  profession  gets  an  earlier  start. 

There  are  some  parents  who  are  so  enamored 
of  the  school  which  trained  them  that  they  are 
afraid  of  the  new  school  which  carries  boys  and 
girls  along  faster  than  pupils  used  to  be  carried 
through  the  elementary  school.  Such  parents  go 
back  in  imagination  to  the  golden  age  of  their 
childhood  and  fabricate  notions  about  the  excel- 
lence of  those  earlier  schools  which  have  no  basis 
in  fact.  Tests  have  been  possible  through  the 
repetition  of  examinations  given  a  generation 
ago;  the  results  of  these  tests  show  that  the 
schools  of  to-day  are  superior  to  those  of  earlier 
times.  Similar  tests  of  pupils  who  have  not  been 
held  back  by  an  antiquated  and  wasteful  pro- 
gram show  that  the  junior  high  school  when 
organized  to  give  enriched  opportunities  is  in 
most  cases  a  superior  school. 
104 


INDIVIDUAL  DIFFERENCES  ' 

On  the  part  of  colleges  there  is  likely  to  be  a 
lack  of  disposition  to  recognize  the  economies 
of  the  junior-high-school  organization.  The  col- 
leges have  been  accustomed  to  think  of  a  high 
school  as  a  four-year  institution.  The  college 
faculty  usually  knows  that  back  of  the  high 
school  there  is  an  elementary  school,  but  a  com- 
mon boast  among  the  members  of  this  body  is 
that  they  know  nothing  about  the  lower  schools. 
If  it  is  proposed  that  the  lower  schools  be  rec- 
ognized as  in  any  way  preparing  for  college, 
faculties  are  likely  to  refuse  to  take  part  in  the 
discussion.  Academic  myopia  will  prevent  their 
seeing  so  far. 

To  be  sure,  there  are  a  number  of  high-school 
principals  who  are  extracting  from  the  colleges 
imconscious  tribute  for  the  junior  high  school. 
Even  to-day  these  principals  are  reporting  to 
the  colleges  as  high-school  credits  courses  taken 
in  what  used  to  be  the  eighth  grade.  Some  day 
colleges  will  find  this  out  and  then  some  will 
accept  the  new  thing  while  others  will  hold  out 
for  a  time  for  what  is  called  the  high  standard 
of  scholarly  work. 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

Probably  the  professional  schools  will  see  the 
economy  of  the  junior  high  school  before  the 
colleges  do.  Perhaps  the  economy  of  the  new 
organization  will  be  compelled  to  express  itself 
for  a  few  years  in  plain  terms  such  as  the  elimi- 
nation of  the  eighth  grade.  In  any  case,  there 
will  doubtless  come  a  time  when  the  richer 
opportunity  and  the  better  articulation  of  the 
lower  school  with  the  higher  will  bring  economy 
to  the  attention  even  of  the  most  conservative. 

There  is  a  somewhat  analogous  problem  of 
economy  at  the  other  end  of  the  high  school. 
There  is  at  that  point  the  so-called  junior  col- 
lege. When  the  two  intermediate  or  junior  or- 
ganizations have  been  assimilated  into  the 
American  educational  system  there  is  likely  to 
be  a  general  awakening  to  the  fact  that  economy 
in  education  can  best  be  effected  by  eliminating 
some  of  the  existing  obstructionist  institutions. 
That,  however,  is  another  story,  the  introduc- 
tion to  which  is  appropriate  here  only  because 
it  helps  to  make  vivid  the  impression  that  prob- 
lems of  economy  are  in  the  air. 

Without  the  goal  of  educational  economy  in 
io6 


INDIVIDUAL  DIFFERENCES 

mind  the  junior  high  school  will  fail  of  one  of 
its  largest  contributions.  It  is  perhaps  the  chief 
evil  of  the  present  chaotic  experimentation  with 
the  junior  high  school  that  the  need  for  economy 
is  not  fully  recognized.  As  soon  as  the  idea  that 
there  must  be  economy  is  accepted,  the  reform 
of  the  curriculum  will  go  forward  more  rapidly 
and  with  clearer  conscious  motives. 

Economy  of  the  true  type  will  be  realized 
only  when  reform  goes  deeper  than  external 
organization  and  produces  changes  in  the  de- 
tails of  the  individual  courses.  The  task  before 
the  junior  high  school  is  at  once  a  task  in  the 
large  and  a  task  in  the  minute.  To  the  adminis- 
trator and  the  student  of  public  affairs  the  junior 
high  school  is  an  institution.  To  the  teacher  it 
is  a  series  of  courses,  all  of  which  must  be  worked 
over  in  detail. 


IX 

PRACTICAL  METHODS  OF  PROMOTING 
REFORM 

There  is  no  problem  more  difficult  of  solution 
by  a  democratic  community  than  the  problem 
of  putting  through  a  reform.  Powerful  indi- 
viduals can  work  reforms  by  the  exercise  of  au- 
thority or  influence  because  the  goal  of  the  pro- 
posed reform  is  clearly  seen  &nd  the  means  of 
reform  are  energetically  used.  The  fact  is  that 
in  most  cases  democratic  society  depends  on 
strong  individuals  to  initiate  and  cany  out  re- 
forms. 

How  much  reforms  depend  on  individuals 
is  not  always  realized  because  the  immediate 
instnmient  of  educational  reform  is  often  a  text- 
book rather  than  an  explicit  declaration  of  pur- 
pose to  make  a  change  in  the  course  of  study. 
Again  and  again  in  the  history  of  American 
schools  sweeping  reforms  have  been  effected  by 
writers  of  textbooks.  Conversely,  a  book  once 
io8 


PROMOTING  REFORM 

established  in  the  schools  is  the  strongest  pos- 
sible stronghold  of  conservatism.  A  successful 
book  will  sometimes  keep  back  reform  for  a 
generation. 

The  influence  of  textbooks  is  especially  strong 
in  American  schools  for  reasons  discussed  in  an 
earlier  chapter.  While  European  teachers  give 
instruction  by  word  of  mouth,  our  schools  have 
developed  textbooks  to  a  degree  which  is  as- 
tonishing. Our  schools  always  have  been  and 
are  to-day  reading  schools,  dependent  for  their 
operations  on  textbooks. 

With  all  its  influence,  the  textbook  has  never 
been  even  remotely  democratized.  Indeed,  it 
is  only  very  recently,  and  in  the  clumsiest  sort 
of  fashion,  that  the  textbook  has  been  made  a 
matter  of  public  concern.  Recently  California 
and  Kansas  have  undertaken  to  publish  their 
textbooks  through  State  agencies.  Many  other 
States  and  local  systems  have  set  up  plans  of 
public  adoption  of  books.  But  even  where  print- 
ing and  adoption  are  public,  authorship  is  indi- 
vidual and  the  machinery  of  adoption  creaks, 
to  say  the  least. 

109 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

Not  only  is  authorship  left  to  the  individual, 
but  the  production  and  distribution  of  the  text- 
book are  left  by  a  public-school  system  to  pri- 
vate commercial  enterprise.  This  is  another  ex- 
ample justifying  the  statement  with  which  this 
chapter  began,  that  democratic  society  usually 
leaves  its  reforms  to  individuals. 

Perhaps  it  is  overbold  to  hope  that  it  can  be 
otherwise.  Certainly  the  individuals  who  write 
American  books  and  the  publishers  who  print 
and  publish  them  are  rendering  a  service  of 
high  quality  to  the  country.  The  influence  of 
the  books  used  in  our  schools  is  for  the  most  part 
justified  by  the  material  supplied  to  the  schools. 

When  one  has  a  special  reform  in  mind  one 
can  hardly  fail  to  think  carefully  of  the  effect 
of  the  textbook  on  this  reform.  In  considering 
the  junior  high  school,  accordingly,  we  may 
very  properly  ask,  What  is  to  be  said  of  the 
books? 

The  answer  to  be  made  to  this  question  is  that 

junior-high-school  books  are  few  and  for  the 

most  part  of  very  little  help  to  the  movement. 

The  junior  high  school  has  been  conceived  by 

no 


PROMOTING  REFORM 

some  to  be  an  institution  requiring  an  abridged 
high-school  book;  by  others,  as  an  institution 
requiring  a  somewhat  larger  collection  of  books 
of  exactly  the  same  type  as  has  been  used  up 
to  this  time  in  the  upper  grades.  The  fact  is 
that  the  junior  high  school  needs  a  new  type  of 
book. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  a  scheme  whereby 
a  new  kind  of  textbooks  could  be  prepared  in 
truly  democratic  fashion.  Perhaps  it  will  not  be 
a  vain  task  to  outline  the  scheme. 

Suppose  that  a  number  of  school  systems 
could  be  induced  to  interest  themselves  in 
creating  a  new  series  of  books.  These  systems 
are  now  willing  to  pay  teachers  of  high  ability 
to  teach  forty  pupils.  They  are  willing  to  pay 
teachers  to  make  out  reports.  Let  us  assume 
that  twenty  systems  could  be  found  in  the  coun- 
try which  would  be  willing  to  pay  teachers  for 
working  out  the  details  of  courses  of  study,  or  at 
least  to  relieve  them  of  part  of  their  other  work 
in  order  that  they  might  devote  energy  to  the 
task  of  making  textbooks. 

Let  us  assume  further  that  in  the  twenty 
III 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

systems  there  are  three  teachers  especially  in- 
terested in  mathematics,  three  others  inter- 
ested in  history,  and  so  on  through  the  list.  Let 
these  specialists  put  their  methods  and  experi- 
ence into  the  form  of  a  preliminary  statement 
of  a  course  to  be  used.  Note  that  the  specialists 
are  not  to  be  asked  to  talk  about  the  course. 
They  are  to  put  down  the  actual  text  material. 

The  next  step  will  be,  not  an  offhand  criti- 
cism of  the  material,  but  a  serious  trial  of  the 
material  by  the  twenty  cooperating  systems. 
If  democracy  cannot  collaborate  the  original 
text,  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be 
trained  to  serious  and  constructive  criticism. 
There  is  plenty  of  such  criticism  of  textbooks 
which  is  lost  to-day  because  we  have  absolutely 
no  machinery  for  collecting  it.  Under  the  pro- 
posed scheme,  teachers  will  be  given  time  for 
criticizing  the  text  as  well  as  for  using  it. 

At  the  same  time,  our  twenty  cooperating 
schools  will  use  tests  to  see  how  much  the  pupils 
who  are  studying  the  trial  texts  really  get  out  of 
them.  Again,  we  have  plenty  of  tests  in  schools 
to-day,  but  we  have  no  machinery  for  sending 

112 


PROMOTING  REFORM 

back  the  results  of  these  tests  to  the  makers 
of  textbooks.  Our  cooperating  schools  will  be 
concerned  with  the  testing  of  their  courses  of 
study  from  a  new  point  of  view. 

It  will  take  time  to  carry  on  this  testing  and 
to  bring  together  the  results.  Perhaps  some 
State  Department  will  see  the  wisdom  of  doing 
the  work.  Perhaps  it  will  be  taken  up  by  a 
National  Bureau.  We  have  such  a  bureau  now 
to  standardize  cotton  and  wheat.  We  have  a 
National  Bureau  that  collects  detailed  informa- 
tion from  the  fields  where  strawberries  and  can- 
taloupes are  produced.  Perhaps  it  will  be  thought 
worth  while  some  day  for  a  democracy  to  make  a 
course  of  study  for  its  schools. 

After  the  criticism  is  in,  the  preliminary  state- 
ment will  be  made  over  into  a  book.  The  book 
will  then  be  kept  in  process  of  periodic  revision 
so  that  it  will  never  block  progress. 

The  plan  is  doubtless  not  so  simple  as  it 
sounds.  It  has  the  advantage  over  the  present 
plan  of  textbook-making  that  it  throws  the  re- 
sponsibility of  this  work  where  it  belongs,  namely, 
on  the  shoulders  of  the  school  as  an  institution. 

"3 


A  DEMOCRATIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM 

Besides  improving  textbooks  such  a  scheme 
would  lead  to  a  study  of  reforms  as  no  mere 
adoption  of  textbooks  ever  can.  If  the  schools 
could  be  made  self-reforming,  we  might  look  for- 
ward to  the  supreme  achievement  of  democracy 
—  a  school  system  in  which  the  teachers  and 
the  courses  of  study,  as  well  as  the  pupils,  are 
in  constant  process  of  adaptation  to  the  growing 
needs  of  community  life. 


OUTLINE 

I.  INTRODUCTION 

1.  Education  began  as  an  aristocratic  privilege 

for  boys  only i 

2.  Democratic  theory  and  aristocratic  practice 
among  the  Puritans 2 

3.  Aristocratic  traditions  in  the  early  national 
period 2 

4.  The  democratic  academy 3 

5.  The  borrowing  of  the  Prussian  common  school  3 

6.  Experiments  in  democratization    ....  3 

7.  The  influence  of  the  war 4 

II.  UNDEMOCRATIC  SCHOOLS 

1.  Universal  education  not  necessarily  democratic      6 

2.  The  compartment  system  of  Germany      .      .      7 

3.  Two  systems  of  training  teachers  ....      8 

4.  Our  normal  schools  modeled  on  the  German 
Lehrerseminar g 

5.  The  spirit  of  education  in  the  Volksschule       .     10 

6.  The  spirit  of  education  in  the  G3annasium  .      .12 

7.  The  German  school  system  is  the  logical  sequel 

of  the  first  educational  system  of  Europe  .      .16 

III.  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
SYSTEM 

1.  New  England  started  with  a  dual  system  of 
schools 19 

2.  Sodalforcespreventedtwoparallelsetsofschools    24 

115 


OUTLINE 

3.  A  cleavage  between  upper  and  lower  schools 
tended  to  persist 26 

4.  Three  facts  partially  counteracting  undemo- 
cratic cleavage 26 

a.  The  right  to  read  the  truth  for  one's 
self 27 

b.  The  local  management  and  control  of 
schools 39 

c.  The  lack  of  vocational  specialization  in 
the  lower  schools 32 

IV.  UNFORTUNATE  BORROWING 

I.  Natural  evolution  of  American  schools  checked 
by  the  borrowing  of  Europe^  patterns     .      .38 

3.  Chaotic  organization  by  local  managements 

opened  the  way 39 

3.  Prussian  common  school  system  borrowed  as 
most  efficient  organization 45 

4.  The  negative  qualities  of  the  Volksschule  .      .  49 

5.  The  immediate  eflfects  not  serious       ...  50 

6.  Two  subsequent  evil  effects 51 

a.  Expanding  the  rudiments     .      .      .      .51 

b.  Delaying  advanced  instruction    .      .      .52 

7.  Radical  reform  should  begin  in  the  upper  grades 

of  the  elementary  school 54 

V.  THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  AN  UNDIVIDED 
EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM 

I.  Experimentation  has  saved  us  from  the  com- 
plete domination  of  the  Volksschule    ...    56 

116 


OUTLINE 

2.  The  intimate  influence  of  the  American  higher 
schools 58 

a.  Academies 58 

h.  High  schools 60 

3.  A  single  continuous  school  system  evolved      .  63 

4.  Something  of  a  break  persists  between  the  ele- 
mentary school  and  the  high  school    ...  66 

VI.  PRESSURE  WITHIN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL 

1.  Influences  making  for  reform  prior  to  the  war  .    71 

2.  Special  pressures  and  responses  within  the  high 
school 72 

o.  The  rapid  expansion  of  the  curricvilum    .    73 
6.  The  elective  system  as  a  mode  of  relief  .    76 
c.  Increasing  the  number  of  studies  as  a 
further  relief 77 

3.  The  colleges  take  over  portions  of  secondary 
instruction 78 

4.  The  seventh  and  eighth  grades  assume  part  of 
the  task 79 

5.  The  junior  high  school  devised  to  bridge  the 
gap  between  elementary  and  secondary  schools    81 

VII.  WHAT  IS  A  JUNIOR  HIGH  SCHOOL 

I.  Two  common  characteristics  of  junior  high 

schools 83 

a.  Departmentalized  form  of  class  organiza- 
tion        83 

h.  The  students  are  of  age  between  elemen- 
tary and  high  school  students     ...    84 

117 


OUTLINE 

a.  Extreme  variations  of  practice  in  junior  high 

schools 84 

a.  Years  of  instruction  included      ...  84 

b.  Housing 84 

c.  Teaching  staff 84 

d.  Courses  of  study 85 

3.  Variations  and  crudities  inevitable  in  an  experi- 
mental period 88 

4.  Scientific  guidance  not  suppression  required    .    93 

5.  General  principles  guiding  the  evolution  of  the 
school  system 93 

VIII.  INDIVIDUAL  DIFFERENCES  AND  ECONOMY 

1.  Two  urgent  considerations  fatoring  reorganiza- 
tion of  junior  high  school  type      ....    95 

a.  Scientific  principle  of  individual  differ- 
ences      95 

b.  Practical  demand  for  economy    .      .  95,  loi 

2.  The  junior  high  school  provides  for  individual 
differences 97 

a.  Individual  differences  accumulate  to  the 
point  of  requiring  recognition      ...    98 

b.  Social  life  calls  for  specialization ...    98 

3.  There  is  nothing  essentially  undemocratic  in 
this  provision  for  individual  differences     .      .    98 

a.  Failure  to  adjust  to  individual  variations 

/       forces  children  out  of  school .      .      .      .98 

b.  Instruction  in  common  elements  of  de- 
mocracy better  realized  as  part  of  pro- 
gram        lOI 

118 


OUTLINE 

4.  The  junior  high  school  stops  current  waste  of 
time  and  energy loi 

a.  Three  sources  of  waste loi 

b.  Two  reasons  for  our  complacent  accept- 
ance of  waste 102 

$.  The  acute  demand  for  educational  economy 

voices  itself  crudely 103 

6.  The  economies  of  the  junior  high  school    .      .  103 

a.  Keeps  children  in  school       .      .      .      .103 

b.  Brings  pupils  to  advanced  study  earlier  .  104 

IX.  PRACTICAL  METHODS  OF  PROMOTING 
REFORM 

1.  Democracies  depend  on  strong  individuals  to 
effect  reform 108 

2.  The  large  influence  of  the  textbook  in  American 
schools 109 

3.  The  inadequacy  of  junior  high  school  textbooks  no 

4.  A  democratic  method  of  preparing  texts   .      .111 


RIVERSIDE   EDUCATIONAL   MONOGRAPHS 

Edited  by  HENRY  SUZZALLO 

Andress's  The  Teaching  of  Hygiene  in  the  Grades  $  .75 

Atwood's  The  Theory  and  Practice  of  the  Kindergartea  .75 

Bailey's  Art  Education  .75 

Betts's  New  Ideals  in  Rural  Schools  .75 

Betts's  The  Recitation  .75 

Bloomfield's  Vocational  Guidance  of  Toutb  .75 

Cabot's  Volunteer  Help  to  the  Schools  .75 

Campagnac's  The  Teaching  of  Composition  ^o 

Cole's  Industrial  Education  in  Elementary  Schools  ^o 

Cooley's  Language  Teaching  in  the  Grades  m|0 

Cubberley's  Changing  Conceptions  of  Education  .40 

Cubberley's  The  Improvement  of  Rural  Schools  .40 

Dewey's  Interest  and  ESort  in  Education  .75 

Dewey's  Moral  Principles  in  Education  ^O 

Dooley's  The  Education  of  the  Ne'er-Do-Well  .7S 

Earhart's  Teaching  Children  to  Study  .75 

Eliot's  Education  for  Efficiency  ^o 

Eliot's  Concrete  and  Practical  in  Modem  Education  ^o 

Emerson's  Education  ^o 

Evans's  The  Teaching  of  High  School  Mathematics  .40 

Faircbild's  The  Teaching  of  Poetry  in  the  High  School  .75 

Fiske's  The  Meaning  of  Infancy  ^o 

Freeman's  The  Teaching  of  Handwriting  .75 

Haliburton  and  Smith's  Teaching  Poetry  in  the  Grades  .75 

Hart  well's  The  Teaching  of  History    .  .40 

Haynes's  Economics  in  the  Secondary  School  .75 

Hill's  The  Teaching  of  Civics  .73 

> Home's  The  Teacher  as  Artist  .4« 

lyde's  The  Teacher's  Philosophy  «tO 

Jenkins's  Reading  in  the  Primary  Grades  .7S 

Kendall  and  Stryker's  History  in  the  Elementary  Grades  .75 

Kilpatrick's  The  Montessori  System  Examined  «^ 

Leonard's  English  Composition  as  a  Social  Problem  .78 

Lewis's  Democracy's  High  School  ;75 

Maxwell's  The  Observation  of  Teaching  .7g 
Meredith's  The    Educational    Bearings   of    Modern    Pqr- 

chology  .75 

Palmer's  Ethical  and  Moral  Instruction  in  the  Schools  .40 

Palmer's  Self-Cultivation  in  English  ^o 

'  Palmer's  The  Ideal  Teacher  .40 

Palmer's  Trades  and  Professions       <  .40 

'Perry's  Status  of  the  Teacher  m|0 

>  Prosser's  The  Teacher  and  Old  Age  .78 

Russell's  Economy  in  Secondary  Education  .40 

Smith's  Establishing  Industrial  Schools  .78 

Snedden's  The  Problem  of  Vocational  Education  ^O 

Suzsallo's  The  Teaching  of  Primary  Arithmetic     •  .78 

SujMsallo's  The  Teaching  of  Spelling  ,78 

Swift's  Speech  Defects  in  School  Children  .78 

Terman's  The  Teacher's  Health  .78 

Thomdike's  Individuality  .40 

Trowbridge's  The  Home  Schod  .78 

Weeks's  The  People's  School  .78 
3016 


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